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LIBRARY OF CHNGRESS. 



(^htnSSJa^Qix^qri^ Ifu.- 



UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



TKOUTING 



ON THE 



BRULE RIVER, 



OR 



LAWYERS' SUMMER-WAYFAEING 



NORTHERN WILDERNESS 



JOHN LYLE KING. 



" That innocent revelry in the luxuriance of summer life which 
only Anglers enjoy to the utmost.' — Bulwer Lytton. ^"-f 

,; OF CO^G^.^ 

jVo.:j.s.o.iJL 



i 



CHICAGO: 
THE CHICAGO LEGAL NEWS COMPANY 

1879. 



7h 



Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1879, 

By John Lyle King, 

In the office of the Librarian, at Washington. 



Stereotyped Printed and Bound 

BY 

The Chicago Legal News Company. 



PEEFATOEY AKD PEESOE^AL. 



August is a season of armistice in forensic strife, 
and is the vacation month of Oliicai^o lawyers. The 
doors of the tribunals are shut during the truce, as 
the gates of the temple of Janus were closed, to 
betoken intervals of peace. Grim-visaged counsel- 
ors of opposing ranks smooth their wrinkled fronts, 
and suspend their heated frays of wits and writs, but 
not all of them to sleep between term and term and 
not know that time moves as was said of lawyers by 
Rosalind. Some of them have touring and roam- 
ing tendencies, sometimes with sportsmen's taste 
added, and absent themselves to the forest, where 
the deer ranges, the wild bird wings its flight, and 
the game fish wantons in the stream, and there 
wield the appliances of sport as zealously, if not as 
skillfully, as they ply the weaponry of legal wrangles 
in the courts. 

The wildernesses of the North-West are free, vast 
franchises of gunning and fishing. The many rivers 
which vein these immense tracts with running 
(iii) 



IV PKEFACE. 

waters, and the numberless lakes in recesses of the 
woods, are inexhanstil)le commons of piscary, of 
whose affluent stores whosoever will, may, without 
let, partake. For an excursion, and on a vacation 
furlough, to one of these streams noted for trout, 
three Chicago lawyers, in August, 1875, joined in a 
party. These were James L. High, author of the 
works on " Injunctions," " Extraordinary Legal 
Remedies," etc., Josiau H. Bissell, compiler of 
"Bissell's Reports," and the writer, together with 
Lorenzo Pratt, a Chicago capitalist. 

The party sought recreation and mental rest. 
Other members of the bar had journej'ed some of 
those regions, in their vacation freedom, on a tour 
of rest, sport and pleasure. They had found and 
reported a full and rare fruition of enjoyment, in 
their wanderings to and on the Brule river. A 
like expedition, with identical purposes, following 
the path of Cook, Campbell, Judge Blodgett and 
others, promised equal and similar delight and good. 
It was a journey and sojourn in open air, made up of 
canoeing, tenting, portaging and roughing gener- 
ally, with the incidents of shooting and fishing. 

The outiit and supplies were provided in Chi- 
cago, and sent by the Chicago & North -"Western 
railway to Section Eighteen, a station of that road 
eighteen miles beyond Marinette, Wisconsin. The 
other accessories — a team for the land route and the 
guides — were engaged in advance at Marinette, and 



PREFACE, 



met the party at Section Eigliteen. The canoes 
were to be procured at Badwater, on the Menomi- 
nee, wliere the water travel began. 

The ffuides were Indians. One of them was 
George Kaquotash, a full-blooded Menominee, mus- 
cular, lithe, active — a veteran of the woods and of 
the Brule. The other was Mitchell Thebault, 
mostly Menominee, with a French infusion of blood 
and name, with his complexion paled to a hue a 
little lighter than the usual Indian copper tint. 
Though with the manners and habits, in some de- 
gree, of civilized life, they were essentially, in na- 
ture and native dialect, Indians. In August of 1877, 
a second excursion to the Brule river was made by 
the same Chicago party, excepting that Mr. Frank- 
lin Denison, also a Chicago lawyer, took the place 
of Mr. BissELL. 

This volume is an intinerary or narrative of these 
excursions. It is made up and revised from dia- 
ries whose notes were jotted down on the way. 
They were kept chietiy to vary or to fill up and di- 
vert idle intervals, or otherwise vacant leisures. 
The notes were off-hand, and took the impromptu 
form and pressure of the body of the time when pen- 
cilled. With some revision, the notes were pub- 
lished partly in tliB Chicago Sunday Times, and 
partly in the Chicago Sunday Tribune, and from 
these journals, with fuller revision again, they are 
now reproduced in this volume. Their further 



VI PKEFACE. 

publicity is more at tlie instance of others than at 
that of the writer himself. 

They are now given to the press, in the trust that 
they may, in this form, prove acceptable to those 
who have sympathy with and interest in matters of 
forest and stream. Their merit is in their minute 
and faithful portrayal of the real life and adventures 
of real persons in pursuit of holiday pastime and 
respite. In the realism of delineation they may be 
serviceable, and so justify their reproduction, as 
faithfully revealing the really "jolly good time" 
tiiat may easily, surely, inexpensively and quietly 
be had by any reasonable party exchanging briefly 
the toils of business for a temporary business of 
pleasure, and that in distances and with appliances 
within ordinary reach and possibility. 

They may show how that business sped prosper- 
ously while the party was gliding in canoes, foot- 
ing portages, dwelling in tents, sleeping balmily on 
hemlock couches, eating with eager appetite, and 
withal affiliating into a genial free-and-easy frater- 
nity, knowing and having only that which was 
mirth-inspiring, health-helping, reposeful and in- 
vigorating. Of course, this is simply narration. 
And while angling was the main diversion and is 
the chief theme of its pages, the work is not that 
of an expert or proficient angler, who can speak by 
the card, or from a professed sportsman's point of 
view, or of one who can claim to discourie instruct- 



PBEFACE. Vll 

ivelj on angling itself, or generally on its delights. 
Nor does it aim to be of the nature of a guide book 
or gazeteer. 

" Though dear to him the angler's? silent trade. 
Through peaceful scenes in peacefulness pursued," 

the writer's experiences with the rod have been in- 
frequent and not varied, and were those of an ama- 
teur and not of an adept. While he cannot dis- 
course generally or didactically on this sport or the 
pleasure of angling, yet in portraying the real lights 
and shadows of a brief period with the rod, and 
somewhat with the gun, and the content, the cheer, 
the fruitions and happenings of a particular party 
of anglers while roughing it in the open air, he ma}" 
indicate and illustrate some of that charm with 
which angling has always enamored so many per- 
sons of various pursuits, temperament and genius, 
and which has made it a devotion and practice of 
their lives. 

Probably the secret of the infatuation of this 
amusement to most or many of the brothers of the 
angle, is to be found in the close and quiet com- 
munion and sympathy with nature essential to the 
pursuit of the spoil of the water. Sir Edward 
Bulwer Lytton avows that he can palliate the wan- 
ton destructiveness of angling by a consciousness 
that its pleasures have not come from the success 
of the treachery practised towards a poor little fish, 
" but rather from that innocent revelry in the lux- 



Vlll PREFACE. 

iiriance of summer life which only anglers enjoj to 
the utmost." Even that Dryasdust book-worm, 
the recluse of Oxford, Burton, has perceived a hint 
of this, and tells us in the "Anatomy of Melancholy" 
of angling, " it is still and quiet; and if so be the 
angler catch no Ush, yet he hath a wholesome walk to 
the brook, pleasant shade by the sweet silver streams ; 
he hath good air and sweet smells of fine fresh 
meadow flowers ; he hears the melodious harmony 
of birds; he sees the swans, herons, ducks, water- 
horns, coots, etc., and many other fowl, with their 
brood, which he tliinketh better than the noise of 
hounds or blast of horns, and all the sport that they 
can make." 

It needs little experience on the stream to real- 
ize that this sympathy and converse with nature 
in her myriad forms of air, sky, woods, water, and 
the teeming life of bird and brute and fish, are a 
great part of the boundless delight of the " angler's 
silent trade." These mysterious influences and 
attractions of nature impart to the use of the rod 
a refinement and fascination which elevate it above 
the rank of a merely gross, illiberal, and vulgar 
sport. This is verified in the instances of many 
noted persons who, while swaying masterly scep- 
tres over the minds of men, have yet also lovingly 
plied angling-rods in the secluded and quiet 
streams. 

The recall of a few names will illustrate how 



PEEFACE. IX 

even erenius has ennobled and accredited the silent 
and contemplative recreation. Many men of fame, 
even eqnal to Dr. Johnson's, have been eminent as 
anglers, and have redeemed and disculjiated ang- 
ling from his surly and foolish sneer. Gay, author 
of the " Fables," and of the " Beggar's Opera," 
must have fondly haunted and fished the stream 
and learned, while swaying a rod, what he has sung 
in his "Rural Sports." Who can say how much 
of the prelate and moralist Paley's speculations 
were meditated when he was seclusively and dearly 
trouting the streams of Cambridgeshire? He was, 
as Christopher Korth says, "a pellucid wi-iter, and 
bloody angler — a ten-dozen-trout-a-day man." 

We know that Sir Humphrey Davy worshij^fully 
frequented trout-pools and salmon-streams with 
boyish delight, and captured their glittering spoil 
with rapture akin to that of a successful experi- 
ment in his laboratory, and that he j^rided himself, 
perhaps, more on his " Salmonia, or Days of Fly- 
fishing," than he did on his invention of the safety- 
lanip. The hero of Trafalgar and the Nile, even 
after the^ loss of his right arm, wielded in his left 
hand an angling rod with a fervor and success akin 
to that with which he waved the sword of war and 
victory. 

When Madame Malibran, a queen of song, felici- 
tated Chantrey on his supposed con amore chisel- 
ins of the marble in his studio, the frank and mod- 



X PKEFACE. 

est sculptor ingenuously bespoke a ruling passion 
when lie protested: "I'd rather be a-fishing!" 
And who that has read them has not hung with 
delight over the glowing pages of Christopher 
North, author of " Nodes Amhrosiance, " and of 
numberless contributions to the literature of brook 
and loch, lake and river, that have idealized and 
poetized angling into a very nobility and glory of 
sport? Certainly, an amusement which in itself 
and in its accessories has unbended, diverted and 
charmed minds and men like these, must be far 
from gross, ignoble or puerile. It is not wonder- 
ful that in its pursuit many gentlemen sometimes, 
as Burton also observes, " voluntarily undertake 
that to satisfy their pleasure, which a poor man for 
a good stipend would scarce be hired to undergo." 
Something needs to be said, generally, about the 
regions and waters mentioned in the following 
pages, the modes of reaching and utilizing them, as 
introductory to the accounts of the excursions 
thither. The river of trout, the Brule or Bois 
Brule, is a small, clear, cold, rocky stream of sixty 
miles, issuing from Lake Brule, running south by 
east. !Not far from its mouth it is joined by the 
Paint river, and their commingled waters flowing 
four or five miles, and then receiving another afflu- 
ent, the Michigami river, as blended tributaries 
become thence the Menominee river. This is a 
tortuous stream of about one hundred and twenty- 



PKEFACE. XI 

five miles, running into Green Bay, with the Miclii- 
gan town of Menominee and the Wisconsin town 
of Marinette at its mouth. Both the Brule and 
Menominee rivers are boundaries between tlie two 
states. 

The Michigami river has its source in Lal^e Mich- 
igami, in tlie iron and copper regions of Lake 
Superior. Its course is southeasterly. Its length 
is about ninety miles. Our party struck this river 
at Republic, reaching there by rail from Chicago, 
and coursed it about fifty-three miles, making thence 
overland and water routes by Lake Mary, the Paint 
river. Mud lake, the Trout (known also as Sugar) riv- 
er, Lone Grave (or Bass), lake and lakes Chicagou and 
Minnie, to the Brule, a distance of thirty-five miles. 
With the exception of the Hamilton and Merryman 
lumbering compan3''s camp, about eighteen miles 
above its mouth, the Michigami, from the point 
where the party touched it, traverses an unbroken 
wilderness. This can now be reached by team on a 
supply road from Badwater, which also extends to 
the headwaters of Ford river. The Michigami 
flows through the richest of forest scenery, and on 
its banks are numerous points where deer may be 
shot, and. at places where small streams come in, 
trout are found. Downward canoeing is a most 
delightful experience of the rambler on this stream. 

The Brule, in 1875, also ran its whole course 
through a complete wilderness. It was then 



Xll PEEFACE. 

reached by overland route from Section Eighteen, 
on the Chicago and l^orth- Western liailway, by way 
of Badwater, on the Menominee, and in canoes 
thence. Since that time, several clianges are visible 
in the few lower miles of the river. About seventeen 
miles above its mouth at the Michigami, a dam 
has been erected, and there is said to be fine trout- 
ing at that point. A mile below that is Arm- 
strong's Camp, and below the latter two miles is 
La Montaigne's Upper Camp; three miles further 
down is Cauldwell's fai-m, and five miles from the 
latter is Stephenson's Brule farm. Here is the 
log cabin at which our party made a descent on the 
cook and his doo-. 

There is now a railroad, operated by the Chica- 
go and Korth-Western company, the Menominee 
River Bailroad, from the line of the former at Me- 
nominee River Junction to Quiniseck, about tw^enty- 
five miles. This point can be reached by rail from 
Chicago, direct, in about sixteen hours. From 
Quiniseck a new wagon road has been made 
to Twin Falls. Between the two falls it crosses 
the Menominee on a fine iron bridge recently con- 
structed, and passes near the south end of Bad- 
water (or Spread Eagle) lakes to the Commonwealth 
iron mines, thence north-easterly, near Fisher's 
lake, to Stephenson's farm, on the Brule. From 
this farm supply roads run to points on Paint 
river, and also a supply road tlience runs nine miles 



PREFACE, XI U 

to Brule dam, built in 1S7S. The distance from 
Qainiseck to this point is about tliirty miles. This 
dam is a mile below Chickabiddy Camp. 

Quiniseck is already something of a village, and 
is the depot of several productive iron regions. 
From Yulcan, on the Menominee Kiver Railroad, 
a supply road runs to Sturgeon river, where both 
good hunting and fishing may be had. On Pine 
river, reached from Twin Falls, there are good fish- 
ing and hunting. From Carney, on the Chicago 
and IS^orth-Western Railway, a road runs due west, 
crossing the Menominee at the Peemenee farm of 
the N. Ludington Company, to the north branch of 
Pike river. From the farm, the road traverses a 
park-like and picturesque country of pine plains, 
Korway pines and scrub oak, and is reputed to be 
an extremely pleasant and easy route. The trout- 
ing on the north branch of the Pike, as well as on 
the main river, is said to be superior. Bass fishing 
and hunting on Caton lakes are very fine. There is a 
good hotel at Carney, where arrangements can be 
made in advance, for teams and suj)plies for parties 
in quest of hunting and fishing amusement at points 
and in regions accessible from that point. The 
sportsman may also make a fine trip on the Esca- 
naba river, by reaching it by rail to Smith mine, 
and thence down the stream hj canoe or boat to the 
mouth. Trouting and deer hunting on this river, 
afford most excellent sport. 



XIV PEEFACE. 



In consequence of these recent openings np of 
mining and lumbering points, and of roads to them, 
the sporting realms of forest and stream are made 
more easily and directly accessible. A sufficiency 
or abundance of supplies, the necessary and proper 
staples of subsistence, may be obtained at the various 
logging and mining points. At Marinette and 
Menominee a retinue of Indian guides for a jour- 
ney and sojourn in the woods, may always be had. 

"With the exception of the points now mentioned, 
the regions traversed by the Brule and Michigami, 
are wholly a wilderness, unsettled, even by Indians. 
The only landmarks are the trails or portages, im- 
passable except on foot, and known only to hunters, 
trappers, prospectors, locators, surveyors or adven- 
turous sportsmen on summer rambles. There is 
no sort of habitation or cultivation. I^ot more than 
two or three parties, during a season, penetrate 
these forests. For such parties the sup]3lies and 
appliances of subsistence must be taken along or 
obtained at the lumber camps, and must be such as 
will admit of being transported in canoes and 
packed over the carries. 

The forests are almost impenetrable, from the 
dense luxuriant growth, undergrowth and fallen 
and decaying timber. There are trails or port- 
ages, as they are indiiFerently called, between dif 
ferent points, and these are passable only on foot, 
and most of them with difficulty in that way. The 



PEEFACE. XV 

canoe is the means of travel. Tlie country is 
threaded in many directions with watercourses, and 
interspersed with lakes and lakelets, and by port- 
ages, the canoes and the outfit of the parties can be 
transported from one navigating course to another. 
In these regions mink, otter, deer, some bear, and 
waterfowl, particularly in their season, are found. 
The sportsman who ventures through the forests 
. may find in them and along the water a surfeit of 
booty for his gun or rod. For the most part he is 
powerless, except when near some of the points 
within railway reach recently opened, to utilize the 
spoils any more than in supplying his camp fare as 
he passes along. Only in exceptional instances, 
and usually in limited quantity, his trout, or deer, 
or ducks, beyond the needs of traveling consunip- 
tion, must be wasted or left behind, neither suffi- 
cing for his own prolonged wants or for gifts to 
friends at home. 

As well as a canoe to move him, the traveler must 
have a tent to house him, and such outfit of camping 
appliances and such store of provisions as may suit 
his taste, his capacity of transporting them, the 
length of the route and the duration of his sojourn. 
Most essential, too, is the guide, his cicerotie, the 
impersonated guide-book of the way, the navigator 
of the birch-bark, the carrier of the luggage, tlie 
tent-builder, the log-heap fireman, the cook, the 
baker, the scullion, in fact the indispensable general 



XVI PEEFACE. 

utility man and brother. He is, or should he, an 
Indian or half-breed, and practically they are the 
same. 

He is a natural born forester. His nature, in- 
stincts, training, traditions, adapt and predestinate 
him to the vagrancy of the woods. The simplicity 
and paucity ot his needs, his being a hunter by he- 
redity, specially qualify him for the services and 
experiences incident to his position as guide. And 
though in contact with civilized life, and sometimes 
engaged in its industries, the aboriginal nature is 
only modified, but never wholly effaced by his hab- 
itancy and associations in town and village; and he 
still, like the fox, " ne'er so tamed, so cherished, 
will have a wild trick of his ancestors." His ances- 
try was forest-born and forest-roving, and by inher- 
itance come his cunning and fitness in woodcraft 
and forestry. The white man, in these respects, 
only compares with him in proportion as he is In- 
dianized. 

The canoe and the redskin are the fitting comple- 
ment of each other. Faddle-swinging and poling 
are necessary concomitants of his aboriginal and 
traditional utilization of barks of the trees for a 
vessel to float him, and for a tepee to shelter him. 
He is a canoeist by a sort of evolution of spe- 
cies. The tent, too, is a variety of his race habita- 
iton — the wigwam or tepee — the easily constructed 
and readily shifted housing and shelter of wander- 



PREFACE. XV 11 

ers. His senses are acute and sleepless; of what- 
ever pertains to the wilderness he will see and 
hear and scent and feel more keenly and quickly 
tlian those having eyes, ears, nostrils and per- 
ceptions schooled in the less exacting necessities 
of civilized life. These were our experiences of 
Indian guides, and they are confirmed by tlie similar 
realizations of other parties. This, of course, is 
the Indian of sinii-civilization, of Wisconsin and 
Michigan, and not the war-whooping, scalp-lifting, 
thieving savage. " tattooed or woaded, clad in win- 
ter-skins," of the great out-West. We found him 
docile, patient, willing and zealous, and most satis- 
fying in his service to us.. 

An excursion to and through the wilderness may, 
of course, be at such cost of time, of money and of 
such length of route as the parties may choose. 
The party itself may consist of any number of per- 
sons. The outfit may be of any desired extent, from 
that of enough, on a scale of frugality and modera- 
tion, to that of surperfluity, on a scale of elegance 
and luxury — either in a just comfortable or in a 
princely style. The considerations quite material in 
that respect are those relating to convenience, rapid- 
ity, facility and freedom of movement, and the small- 
est and least burdensome of impedimenta of course 
subserve or answer best those conditions. 

The essentials of such a trip are simple and mod- 
erate. For apparel, a heavy suit worn on the per- 



XVIU PREFACE. 

son, dark shirts, clianges of underclothing, and a 
few toilette articles, are sufficient. For provisions, 
a supply of staples, such as pork, flour, meal, pota- 
toes, biscuit, coifee and tea, butter and lard, calcu- 
lated on the scale of the army ration. A pair of 
heaviest blankets to each man and the tent are suffi- 
cient for the dormitory. With these must be the 
necessary utensils tor cookery and a tin service for 
the table. To all of these may be added whatever 
fancy or taste may prompt, consistently with the 
portable capacity. 

A party of four is probably the most pleasant and 
practicable for companionship and congeniality. 
The number of guides should equal that of the party. 
One canoe will transport four persons and half of 
the outfit, and that and the vessels can conveniently 
and without much strain, be carried over the por- 
tages. The expense of the trip will be proportioned, 
certainly, to its time, distance and kind of equip- 
ment. 

A month's roving and sojourning in the wilder- 
ness, as distant as that of the Brule, with ample 
outfit, not stinted of substantials for comforf, in- 
cluding the compensation of guides, and fare from 
Chicago and return, and the canoes, may be easily 
accomplished by each of a party of four, at a cost 
of from eighty to one hundred dollars. Those' who 
have rambled in vacations in quest of rest, health 
and sport, in those or similar regions, have no occa- 



PREFACE. XIX 

sion ever to regret their cost in time and money. 
Since tliis work has been in type, the map and 
tallies of rontes and distances, have been prepared 
and appended. They were compiled from maps 
of snrveys or other anthentic sources, are accurate, 
and probably, as a whole, are the first that have 
appeared in any form accessible to the public. The 
distances stated in the book are such as were given 
by the Indians, or were conjectured by onrselves. 
The names of places are spelled as they were pro- 
nounced by the guides. In only a few instances 
are there errors of distance or of orthography, and 
they are trivial and unimportant. The map and 
tables will serve to correct them. For these ta- 
bles and the map, and for other valuable informa- 
tion, the writer is indebted to Arthur T. Jones, of 
"Marinette, M'hose intelligence in respect to the re- 
gions traversed, and their facilities for sport and 
modes of reaching them, is as conspicuous as the 
obliging and courteous nature which prompted him 
to contribute them. 

If the lover of woods and M'aters shall, on peru- 
sal of^ this volume, be inspired with a desire to go 
and do likewise — should he perceive the charm 
and catch the spirit of idling, rambling and sport- 
ing in the wilderness— especially should the lawyer, 
wearied and spent in professional labor, seeking to 
escape it and the roar and whirl of the city, be led 
by the reading to betake himself, for needed recrea- 



XX PKEFACE. 

tion and respite, to the silence and peace of the 
great forests, and so refresh and vitalize his wasted 
forces for his renewed work of the desk or of the 
re-opened forum, tlien the writer's purpose has 
not been fruitless, his ambition will have been 
satisfied, and he may feel that he has in a sense not 
unmeaning and in a measure not unimportant, done 
something towards the discharge of that debt which 
Lord Bacon says every lawyer owes to his profes- 
sion. 




/ 



/ 



f 



TROUTING ON THE BRULE. 



CHAPTER I. 

SECTION EIGHTEEN — THE START — THE ABORIGINES AND TEAM- 
STER — KAQTTOTASH REFRACTORY — RAIN — RELAY HOUSE — 
A BOTTLE-FIEND — A CLERIC CURMUDGEON — ON THE WAY 
— ARMA YIRUMQUE CANO — FIRST BLOOD — GAIETY IN THE 
RAIN— AN INDIAN TATTERDEMALION — STEPIIENSON's. 

August 10, 1875. At two o'clock, afternoon, we 
shunted off, and dumped the outfit from the train, 
at Section 18. The eighteenness of the section was 
tlie most there was of it — that is, its being that 
distance in miles from Menominee. The rest — the 
odds and ends of it — was a small, rude, uncovered 
log platform, with a log cabin and a little wheezing 
steam sawmill in the background of a bit of clear- 
ing in the woods. Here began our acquaintance 
with the teamster, George Evanson, a tougli Nor- 
wegian, with a span of rugged, stout horses, giving 



2 TROUTING ON THE BKULE. 

the most satisfying assurances of possibilities of 
(Irauo-lit in awaffon fitforroiio-hino:, and also with onr 
aboriginal guides. The Indians were not the wild 
savages typilied in the wooden effigy of the snufi' 
and tobacco shops, with moccasins, leggings, blanket, 
eagle-plume and tomahawk, and with streaked and 
painted jaws. One was a full-blooded, copper-skin- . 
ned Menominee, and the other a mixed-blooded Me- 
nominee. They were coated, trowsered and booted i n 
backwoods atti re. They were stalwart, and seeming- 
ly in superb order for our purposes. From their thews 
and sinews we had a prescience of splendid service 
and all requisite utilities. The first was George 
Kaquotash, and the other, Mitcliell Thebault. 

The road started rough and up and down. We 
footed some distance of the jonrney, to stretch our 
legs and straighten the crinkles of the railway sit- 
ting. Kaquotash was groggy. He seemed to fancy 
my company, and, in a warmth of spontaneous 
friendliness, vehemently fraternized me, and walked 
me hand-in-hand, until I tired of the grip. He pro- 
posed switching off and heading the team by a 
short cut through the woods. I declined taking a 
route of continuous shower-baths through the drip- 
ping foliage. Either from this, or because he was 
steaming up to fuller pressure from a nip he took 
from a flask, the fraternal affinity rapidly weakened, 
and he began to grow ugly, and soon, from mere 
"cussedness," or from a streak of untamed aboriginal 



SUMMER WAYFARING. 6 

deviltry, became impudent, defiant and mutinous. 
He tlireatened to turn back and go home. He sulked 
and grumbled. We halted in the rain, to appease 
liim, or find what the trouble was. AVhen our own 
patience was about exhausted at his perversity, 
he suddenly and unaccountably gave in and lapsed 
into sheepish quiet and servility. The procession 
moved on. 

We had arranged our time-table to make Peemony 
farm for the night. The showers, however, rather 
abated the ardor of advance. The Relay House 
was eight miles from the railway. When we 
reached it, we were wet enough, with so many of 
the jolly kinks wilted out of us as to make us glad of 
a friendly shelter. Though it was but four o'clock 
and the fever of on-and-ahead was not all subsi- 
ded, nobody remonstrated when it was cautiously 
hinted that the roof of a house was preferable to the 
roof of a showering sky, and, regarding the situation 
as inevitably determinative, we accepted the neces- 
sity with all possible good grace. Evanson unhar- 
nessed the dripping roadsters and stabled them. 

We four moistly advanced on the bar-room stove, 
in which was quickly crackling the combustive fuel, 
and our wet clothes, when changed, were strung 
around to dry, and sent up plentiful steaming exhal- 
ations. George had an exclusive flask of whiskey, 
which he began to swig from, and which made him 
again ugly, noisy and very boozy. He muttered 



4r TKOUTING ON THE BRULE. 

and mumbled unintellif^ibly at everytliing and 
everybody, and became an unmitigated nuisance. 
He was smart enougli withal to embosom tlie liery 
bottle flibbertigibbet under his red shirt, and there 
was no Chicago lawyer crafty enough to slip or steal 
it out. There w^as no help for it but to let his 
demonish familiar be exhausted to emptiness. It- 
was sharp collective finessing to get him laid by for 
the night. As too inflammatory a ration for his 
native temperament, we determined out of abundant 
caution to suspend George from the franchise of the 
excursional grog thereafter. 

After supper, we strolled over to the Menominee, 
a half-mile walk, for a glimpse of river scenery. 
It was narrow there, and brawled in little rapids. 
A short way down the bank was a large, abandoned, 
logman's cabin. There was a ghostly inmate with- 
in it, however, a Catholic priest with a lay follower, 
utilizing the gloomy hugeness of the hut for tem- 
porary camping. They were bound up the river 
deer-hunting. It was evident that the consecrated 
sportsman loved to handle a weapon that was not 
spiritual, as well as to twiddle a rosary. He may 
have been saintly, too, but he certainly was not so- 
ciable, and gave us men of the world the cold 
shoulder. He extended to us, in no way, any ben- 
efit of clergy; and willingly suffered us to depart 
from him without fatherly benediction, or any im- 
plied jpax vohiscuin. 



SUMMKR WATFAEING. 5 

Next morning, we were egregiously chap-fallen 

when we took weather observations, and saw rain, 

signs of greater rain, and of rain all day. On, on, 

was the watchword, though the heavens should fall. 

A shower, after all, was a trifle, and must not be 

allowed to dash 

' ' The even virtue of our enterprise, 

Nor th' insuppressive mettle of our spirits." 

George's whiskey -fiend was laid completely; he 

himself was straight, more white and less Indian, 

and in full feather with the party. We piled in the 

wagon and went on, heroically taking the drip as it 

came. 

Pratt was our gunner. His weapon was a shot- 
gun fowling piece, not brought for any premed- 
itated service in the way of havoc to game, of wing 
or of foot, but merely as a usual and handy imple- 
ment to have along, if anything should come in 
the way and permit itself to be shot at, and, at 
any rate, to help kill time with, if to kill nothing 
else. He was not a practiced marksman. We did 
not count much on his often harming bird or beast, 
and he himself was not very vain or conceited in 
the way of fatality or prowess with his gun. But 
for all that, he trusted in Providence, and in all the 
pitiless drench, kept his powder dry. 

Though to any ardent son of saltpetre, the pros- 
pect for triggering was slim, to all appearances, a 
few miles out, three sick-looking partridges, soaked 



6 TEOUTING ON THE BEULE. 

and bedraggled, spiritless as wet liens, poked stupid- 
ly out of a cover of brush by the wayside, flapped 
the raindrops off their wings and fluttered up to the 
limbs. ■ This chance would animate a soul under the 
ribs of death, and aroused Pratt to the requirements 
of the exciting crisis. He uncovered his battery, so 
to say, and got out in the mud, adroitly stole a march 
to a good strategic point, made ready, took aim, and 
fired. An irrigated partridge " felt the fiery wound, 
fluttered in blood, and panting, beat the ground." 
The others of the flock were too weather-beaten and 
droopy to whir themselves far away. Pratt fol- 
lowed them up, and again sprung the trigger and 
let fly, but he let fly the miserable fowls as well, 
unharmed. 

It rained steadily. We took the pouring without 
flinching. We had to. Hydropathic treatment 
was unavoidable. It was a great problem to keep 
the stores dry. We tried to tickle ourselves with 
mirth, and to weather it, or volatilize the exceed- 
ing moistness and ourselves with dry jokes. We 
jested at the rain, while it was pelting us. High 
had the face and ill-timed effrontery to torture us 
with his Arkansas hash story, a variorum edition 
of it, and so rung the changes on it as nearly to 
cause a manifestation of our Relay House hash. 
But in time the facetiae became sickish and too flat. 
The heavy levity was too much for us. We relapsed 
into suUenness and sulks. We didn't care. We 



SUMMER WAYFARING. 7 

were resigned. We conld join in Falstaff's invo- 
cation: " Let the sky rain potatoes; let it thunder 
to the tune of Green Sleeves, hail kissing comfits, 
and snow eringoes." 

As we jogged on, the road worsened greatly. 
High and I, jostling on the seat with the driver, par- 
tially covered Bissell, Pratt and the tacit aborigines, 
who were astride and atop of the load, ballasting it, 
and to keep from being pitched off was all the art 
they knew. Kubber coats proved the wretched fal- 
lacy of caoutchouc. I wore one, which glistened in 
the most assuring semblance of iniperviability, but 
ray shoulders were no dryer than my legs. The 
water streamed off hats, and dribbled down our 
noses. We were soaked through and tlirough. 

The roughness of the road added greatly to the 
mishaps of the rain. The last ten miles of way 
towards Stephenson's wei-e simjily execrable. There 
was nowhere a level of more than a few rods. The 
vehicle canted from one side to the other, threaten- 
ing to dump the top-heavy load of men and bag- 
gage in the ditch, creaking and straining, as in 
throes of trial, bouncing over corduro}'-, and pitch- 
ing into holes and ruts. By way of variety of mis- 
erv, some or all of us o^ot out and walked, and soon, 
as we trod along, our boots or shoes were soaked like 
sponges, and squshed the water up our shins and 
knees. The asylnm we longed for was Stephen- 
son's, and on the omne ignotura ])to magnijico prin- 



8 TEOUTING ON THE BRULE. 

ciple, we idealized it into a blissful sanctuary of 
content and shelter. The onl}^ habitation between 
that and the Relay House was the Peeniony farm, 
at the rapids. The road trends to and touches the 
river. 

At a deserted cabin a weather-bound, dismal 
Menominee tatterdemalion was crouching under 
its meagre vestige of clap-board roof for cover. 
Our natives interviewed him, and learned that he 
was navigating supplies up to Sturgeon river for 
John Stockton and Robert Clark, who were to travel 
the overland route there. This forlorn redskin 
was the solitary human being we yet had met all 
that day. It restored us to some degree of grim 
complacency to perceive that we were not the only, 
or even most miserable, sinners in such a woful, 
aqueous plight. Like the liares that went to drown 
themselves in a sheer desperation of misery, y^ 
took heart to live when they saw the frogs in the 
pool, swelled to bursting with batrachian grief far 
exceeding their own, our hearts lifted from the 
depths, at the comforting thought that at least one 
wretched pagan was in more "doleful dumps" than 
we. 

When told we were within two miles of Stephen- 
son's our hearts rose higher from the depths. But 
it was a too flattering tale that hope told us. The 
buoyancy was premature. We did not know what 
that reputed two miles meant, either of distance, 



SUMMER WAYFARING. 



9 



time, rain, road and travel under increased difficul- 
ties. Eacli mile, in the going, seemed a league, and 
the hour and a half of harder plodding thitlier 
seemed to stretch to three. After tugging slowly 
and crookedly up a hill, where the law of gravitation 
appeared to operate with more than its usual force 
against our ascent, the much-vaunted and eagerly 
looked -for Stephenson's hospice stood before us. 

It was a large, double, low, pine log and log- 
men's cabin of the most primitive frontier order of 
architecture. But we promptly unloaded ourselves 
from the wagon, each one dripping like a bather 
from his wash. The wooden pile was a welcome 
castle of shelter. Interiorly, it was fitted up roughly 
but comfortably, for the needs of the hardy chop- 
pers, whose axes make annual havoc in the neigh- 
boring forests of pine. In one part, are tiers of 
bunks for sleepers, and in the other, are the kitchen 
and dining rooms. The loggers live there only in 
the winter; two or three persons were all who quar- 
tered there at this season. 

We lost no time in changing wet for dry clothes. 
Every peg around the large stove was festooned, 
and three-legged stools were hung with an ill- 
favored display of drenched coats, saturated breeches, 
watered shirts and soaked socks, which so strung 
about, made the apartment look like a second-hand 
" old clo ' " shop in Jewry. They were the cast-off* 
dehris of ^armenture, then doing their last service. 



10 TKOUTING ON THE BRULE. 

Of all the Stephensonian denizens, the cook was the 
most impoi'taut personage to us. He was a shiny- 
faced, stumpy young French Canadian, with a patois 
of Quebec and Boston. But he knew his business 
of skillet and dish, and discerning hunger as the one 
common facial expression of the crowd, he bustled 
around with promptness in preparing us a meal of 
pork, biscuit, potatoes and coffee. The spread 
gratifyingly surprised and satisfied us. At the 
signal we charged on the viands, and soon tlie bounti- 
ful provision vanished like the baseless fabric of a 
vision, scarce leaving crust or scrap behind. 

There were signs of clearing in the sky, and the 
words "go ahead" were spoken; but then, that we 
were well dried and warmed, and could not surely 
forecast dryness and warmth for the rest of the day, 
we considerately resolved to wait, abide and bear 
the ills we had — mainly an impatience to be moving 
— rather than to chance others that we knew not 
of. And, as if specially to verify to us our sensible 
prescience in staying, it was not long before some 
western clouds trooped up in dark masses, and 
rained down like mad, and made us conscious of 
how wisely discerning were our prophetic souls, and 
how much the woodman's rude cabin was a li-iendly 
home of ease and comfort. 

We had ample chance to overhaul the tackle and 
see to having everything in perfect trim. Bissell 
took the situation contentedly enough to spread 



SUMMER WAYFAKING. 11 

liimself on the floor, pillowed on a satchel, and in the 
glow of the firelight he i-eveled in the pages of Victor 
Hugo's '"93." High had a novel, too, and in it, 
apart and with his pipe, was wrapt in pensive con- 
templation, on a stool. Pratt and I cultivated good 
graces and friendly intimacy wdtli the maestro of 
the kitchen bureau. The situation, for one of 
weather-bonnd confinement, was not, by any means, 
intolerable. 



CHAPTER II. 

IN CLOVEi; — AFOOT — THE ROAD — STURGEON FARM — TO DICK- 
Ey's — A LANDSCAPE AND RIVER VIEW — AT DICKEY'S — HIS 
DOG AND A DINNER — A CANOE — A HURDLE ROUTE — FIRST 
CAMP — BADWATER — TOM KING — EMBARKATION — MICHI- 
GAMI FALLS — A PICKERKL CAPTURE— TRAIL TO BRULE 
FALLS — OLD SLEDGE AND NEW FRIENDS. 

Our host of tlie cabin meant us well, and was 
generous of his best hospitality. He had a couple 
of double bunks fitted expressly for our sleeping, 
and his choicest blankets laid to enfold us in their 
soft and ample spread. The arrangement looked 
well enough, and promising to our tired natures 
of sleep that would be balmy and restful. Yet when 
it came time to wrap the covers of the bunk around 
us, certain entomological speculations were aroused 
by the prying research of one of our observers, who 
had a restless habit of inquisitiveness, and more 
than a suspicion of the cimex lectularius crept 
into our study of imagination and perturbed us. 
(12) 



SUMMER WAYFAEING. 13 

"VVe were in a dilemma between considerations of 
vermin and of propriety. What to do or not to do, 
so as neither to offend our (yood host or our better 
selves, >vas a delicate question. But Bissell, in a 
pause of the rain, gadding around with a thirst for 
knowledge, or on a reconnoisance of curiositj^ had 
discovered a haystack, a huge cone or mound of 
mown grass, with a movable roofing over it. Pie 
bethought himself of the haycock and imparted the 
discovery to us. We hailed this as a happy solu- 
tion of the quandary. The haymow was moved as 
a substitute for the cabin scaffolds, and after the 
previous question, and then the main question 
being put — the party decidedly preferring the 
chance of hay-seed to a prospect of the hospitable 
bug — the matter was settled Qiem. con. 

We stood not on the order of going. To charge on 
and scale the heights of the towering heap wei-e no 
sooner said than done, and once on the summit, we 
were quickly cuddled in the blankets and nestling in 
slumbrous repose. All there is of being snug as 
a bug in a rug was each one's happy fate while 
snuggling in the haycock dormitory. We had at 
least stolen a march on the suspected lectularian 
pest, and instead of it, had nothing other than 
slumber "gently o'er us stealing." We fancied, 
however, that the master of the messuage greeted 
us with no very gushing morning salutation, when 
we crept out of the haystack. Possibly he felt that 



14 TKOUTING ON THE BRULE. 

our giving a wide berth to his bunks was rather un- 
gracious — a reflection on his accommodation and an 
insensibility to the kindness and hospitality meant 
in putting them into extra trim for our service. 

The shiny-faced Canadian breakfasted us early 
for a timely start. A few minutes after five, before 
there was sun to glisten the drops on the herbage, 
we made our adieus to Stephenson's, and took to the 
road, which w^as exceedingly rough and uneven. 
At first we went afoot. But Pratt, who was slightly 
ailing, perched on the seat with the driver. When 
we mounted and squatted on the luggage, the 
bouncing motion of the wagon made it more un- 
pleasant to hold the load and ourselves on than it 
was to walk. The choice between the vehicular and 
pedestrian mode of travel was about an even thing. 
We saw nothing but woods, passed two log clear- 
ings, heard a couple of unseen choppers hacking 
at invisible trees, went through a large sugar maple 
camp, and twice touched near enough the river to 
catch its silver glistening through the embowering 
verdure, and hear the babbling music of the rapids. 
Our natives went afoot, tramping short-cuts, and 
kept in the advance. Sturgeon farm was the first 
objectiv^e point, said to be fifteen miles from Steph- 
enson's. 

About ten o'clock we came to Sturgeon river, 
where it flows into the Menominee. Fording the 
former at its mouth — it being then from summer 



SUMMER WAYFARING. 15 

shrinking mncli clown in tlie mouth — we struck the 
bounds of Sturgeon, otherwise New York farm, 
which lies there bordering the two streams. After 
the density of wilderness and naturalness we had 
traversed, it opened on us like a perspective of 
beauty and a scene of life. There are some good 
buildings of wood on the place, a capacious barn, a 
store-room, and a large acreage of meadow, the 
property of a lumbering company. It is the base 
of supplies and stores of various kinds, and also 
the abode of the choppers in the company's winter 
employ. There is an aspect of neatness, thrift, en- 
terprise and prosperity about the farm. Its chief 
importance to us, however, was in its capability of 
supplying wants already felt. We were customers 
on its subsistence reserves. 

The next point was Dickey's. Ten miles stretched 
between it and the farm. It was not a much more 
pleasing route than that already passed over. It 
led up a hill, and ran a goodly distance along a ridge 
of hills, and some of it was comparatively smooth 
going, while other portions of the road were rough 
and broken. We tested considerably our pedestrian 
capacities on the way. Huckleberries M-ere plen- 
tiful, and we picked and mouthed our till of them. 
There was much dead timber, with scattering num- 
bers of skeleton pines and hemlocks, and nothing 
enlivening in the way of scenery to relieve the 
cheerless monotony. 



16 TKOUTING ON THE BKULE. 

We plodded wearily on till we readied a hill range 
overlooking the river. There was an open space 
from which the timber had been cleanly stripped, 
and a deserted cabin then in decay, was the sole ves- 
tige of a former bnsy logging camp. The ground 
was worthless for culture, but had a great apparent 
capacity for brambles and weeds. And when its 
original wealth- of pines had been exhausted, the 
place was abandoned and relapsed into a dismal 
waste. But the site, desolate in itself, yet afforded 
an outlook of a charming stretch of river and forest 
panorama. The guides, with something of an eye 
for the beautiful, had told us of the view, and had 
led us to it. 

High said that within his experience, which was 
one of considerable familiarity with the indigenes 
of Colorado, Utah and Wyoming, our Indian retinue 
were the first of the race whom he had known to 
have a sensibility to the charms of scenery. Kaquo- 
tash and Thebault lingered, as we did, in admi- 
ration of the vista. Below us was the river bend- 
ing, a belt or outline of gleaming silver winding 
through masses of verdant forest magically coloring 
to varying and shifting hues, from the stirring of 
the breeze, the shading of a cloud or the full efful- 
gence of the sun. The blending view of woodland 
and stream was much finer than that at Sturgeon 
farm, and was, really, our first vision of the 
Menominee picturesque. 



SUMMER WAYFARING. 17 

We were tiring of the way, and longing for Dick- 
ey's, wliere we were to halt for rest and dining. 
The plodding along was wearisome, till the propor- 
tions of his cabin, in a patch of clearing, loomed 
into sight. Like the few and far between kindred 
structures of the woods, it was of the rude, primal, 
wooden style of architecture. It is a trading sta- 
tion, lonely in its isolation as a hermit's retreat, 
wliere the scattered few Indians repair to dicker 
their furs, skins and deer, for pork, ilour, tobacco, 
gawdy trinkets and such commodities as suit their 
primitive wants and tastes. 

Dickey, his cook and dog, were sole occupants of 
the solitary ranch. It serves as a domicile, as a store 
in a rudimentary form, and as a hostelry or inn, in a 
legal sense, as a place where the traveler is furnished 
with everything he wants, provided the traveler has 
occasion for very little. The little we wanted was a 
dinner. Our lean and hungry look was hint enough 
to the cook to vigorously bestir himself. We heard 
the clatter of pans and the simmer of the fry, and, in 
our waiting eagerness, grateful and tantalizing fore- 
tastes of the meal crept into our senses in savory 
wafts from the kitchen. 

While the preparation was going on, some of us 
stretched on the bunks, or blanketed shelves, for ease. 
Dickey's white, shaggy dog jumped up and laid 
down beside the recumbent, or tried to; and when 
kicked out, betook himse'f to another and offered the 
2 



18 TROUTIXG ON THE BRULE. 

same doggisli familiarity, Liit with like result. Ti;e 
traveling of the day had sharply appetized ns, so that 
the devastation of bread, pork, potatoes, syrup and 
Oolong, surprised, though satisfying, ourselves, but 
disquieted the host. Probably, with limited sup- 
plies in the out-of-the-way cabin, the exploits of our 
six able-bodied appetites in reducing his stores, 
might easily have inspired some anxiety, if not actual 
consternation. But we wei-e traveling in search 
of appetites of zest and longing unknown to the 
lagging or dormant appetence of the home-stomach. 
It was here that I gave way to the seductiveness 
of tobacco. I had long been a cloud-compeller, 
but for the tw^o years previously was a teetotaler in 
smoking, and the delicious aroma of the weed was 
only known to me iu the vain fruition of occasional 
collateral sweets and sideway perfumes, which 
chanced to be whiffed about by other smokers. But 
here, looking forward to days and nights in the 
woods, where, of all places, m}' ancient familiar or 
genius of the fume, would be an always readily 
evoked and answering solace and companion, alike 
in the hours of the sun and of the stars, and when 
just at my side I saw High leaning against a tree 
puffing so pleasingly, and as if impersonating all 
the beatitudes, and the rich burning incense that 
spread in a glory of cloud and odor from his amber- 
tipped and ruddy-tinted meerschaum — " O, it came 
in my nose like the sweet scent that breathes upon 



SUMMER WAYFARING. 19 

a bank of violets, stealing and giving odor'' — the 
smoking passion sprang from its trance of two 
years like smouldered embers leaping into instant, 
living flame. 

I was at once irrecoverably enthralled in the deli- 
cious spell, and felt my utter impoteney to banish 
the fascinating Satan-tempter to the rear. I threw 
myself headlong, as it were, into the full tide of 
fruition. Dickey had clay-pipes and yellow paper 
packages of tobacco with the Milwaukee trade-mark 
on. Of these I provided a sujDply ; as they were the 
best in Dickey's bazaar, I was not inclined to be 
critical or squeamish. The luxury of that flrst after- 
dinner smoking was a supreme felicity indeed. 

"And the last trace of feeling with life shall depart, 
Ere the smoke of that moment shall pass from my heart." 

Our prospectus of the journey had noted on it, 
" canoes at Bad water." But Dickey's saleable estate 
included a birch bark. It occurring to us that 
as a bird in the hand is w^orth more than the pos- 
sible or uncertain bird or dozen birds in the 
bush, a canoe we could secure was more valuable 
and to our purpose than supposed or conjectural 
canoes up the river, we advised ourselves to in- 
vest in a present vessel. Our marine force, George 
and Thebault, was dispatched to the river to inspect 
the offered bargain and report. We put the mat- 
ter in our pipes and leisurely smoked it while they 
were gone. Their report was satisfactory. The 



20 TE0UTIN(3^ ON THE BRULE. 

canoe was first-class, and ready for instant service. 
Dickej^'s figure was twenty dollars. The score was 
settled. 

The Indians returned to the river, and soon 
thence shouldered the vessel to us, when we saw 
at a glance that we had acquired a very model 
and beauty of water-craft. It had dimensions for 
storage. It was staunch and tight; it was graceful 
and shapely; and when George lifted and balanced 
it on his head, to carry it through the woods, we 
saw its good qualities of form, size, grace and port- 
ability, at a glance. It protruded like an elongated, 
but seemingly imponderable, hood of bark, or huge 
fibrous pod. ^Nothing but Indian experience and 
patience could have worked it a way through such 
woods. High went afoot with it and the natives. 
It was to be portaged to a point above Twin Falls. 
On the trail were two small lakes. Bissell, Pratt 
and myself went with the wagon. 

The route, or landway, from Dickey's to Badwater 
was ten miles. It was not really a road, in the 
sense of that leveling, grubbing, filling and cut- 
ting, which are supposed to be implied in the legal 
conception of a road where there are supervisors 
of highways about. The ground was of varying 
grades and forms of curve; declivities and acclivities, 
on spurs of little hills, seemingly too abrupt for 
safe teaming, and menacing constant upsettings. 
The branches of trees had often to be pushed aside; 



SUMMER WAYFARING. 21 

they scratclied into the driver's eyes, and if our 
Norwegian Jehu had been long-haired, like his 
remote barbarous IS^orse progenitors, there were 
many obtrusive limbs which might have swung 
him, like Absalom, by the locks. The trail was 
sometimes blocked with fallen trees, and the barri- 
cade yielded only to the axe, or it might be, trees 
had to be felled to open a detour. 

One of us went afoot, in advance, to explore the 
way. Another followed behind to see that nothing 
slipped or jarred out of the wagon. We skirted one 
of the lakelets which the Indians had crossed with 
the canoe, and soon after, coming to another sheet, a 
perilous looking bog or slough extended across the 
way, and there was nothing for us but to risk the 
treacherous passage. The horses plunged in the 
slough, and at once sank to their bellies, and pitched 
forward and fell, one nearly on top of the other. 
They floundered and struggled a moment. The 
teamster waded in, and rapidly unharnessing the 
animals, they recovered their legs, and being hitched 
to the tongue and put to their mettle, after sundry 
hard pulls, they jerked the vehicle from the mire, 
out on solid ground. We were in not a little sus- 
pense as to the probability of extricating the wagon, 
in its integrity, I'rom the awkward fix. 

When the route touched the river above Twin 
Falls, Pratt left the team and navigated with High 
the canoe there launched and awaitino' him. There 



22 TROUTING ON THE BRULE. 

were then five miles of roughing before ns. In 
that distance, there were the sarae, or more, obsta- 
cles to impede our journeying. Fortunately, the 
horses were of the sturdy and enduring kind. 
Their day's work would have worn down common 
scrubs. Evanson was an experienced teamster, and 
knew his business well. So neither wagon nor 
horses had any but trivial mishaps, though it was 
almost a miracle that we had not been capsized a 
dozen times. Towards the close of the day and the 
end of the route, difficulties provokingly multiplied. 
The timber across the trail appeared to be larger and 
plentier, and the chopping was more laborious. 

The gloom of the twilight gathered in the trees 
above us, and before we had made way to the end of 
the trail, the night encompassed us in darkness; the 
twinkle of the stars through the overshadowing 
foliage was too feeble a glimmer to guide us among 
the mazes. We groped the way cautiously, and, 
spite of his skill in night-driving, the teamster 
drove much at hap-hazard, or trusted to his horses. 
When within a few rods of the intended stopping 
place, we were impeded in a fastness of fallen timber 
from which there was no getting on or going back. 
We were unwittingly impounded for the night. 
We were actually nearer the river than we sup- 
posed, as in a moment or so, we heard the halloo 
signal of the water-wayfarers, who had themselves 
but just barely escaped the fate of being helplessly 



SUMMKR WAYFARING. -^*^ 



beniglited down the river. Qiir responding shouts 
brought them quickly to us. ^ 

As we had to make the best of the imbrogho m 
which we had insnared ourselves, an available spot 
for camping was found by candle light. It was 
sliort work to heap and lire a log pile into flames. 
With the increasing irradiation of the blazes, the 
dark shadows of the woods lighted up, and the foli- 
ao-e changed into weird shapes as the glare of the 
fit-eli^ht illumined and wavered. They lent us, too, 
a o-low of good cheer. We could well have resigned 
oul-selves to the situation, were it not that the same 
camp-fire which brightened us was the signal for the 
mosquitoes to swarm upon us for an eager recep- 
tion. 

So too, those winged motes, with most annoy- 
ing perforating effects, the midgets, unmerci- 
fuSy pricked us at every exposure of cuticle. Even 
the^oil and tar with which we smeared our faces, 
necks and hands, gave little protection against the 
stinging pests. But neither they nor the abundant 
vianlls of Dickey's dinner, abated our eagerness for 
another meal. Thebault's first exploit with kettle 
and pan, though rather hurried, so as sooner to meet 
the vehemency of our demands, was impatiently 
awaited. We came up smiling to our first table, 
the provision box, with blanket bundles for seats, 
and we unanimously pronounced the supper a happy 
success. 



24 TROUTING ON TIIK BRULE. 

We too readily yielded to sleep to be long or 
inucli worried by mosquitoes and midgets. In the 
tent, thongli, the notes of their morning* reveille 
were early and vigorously struck, and there was 
but slight yearning for a little more slumber and 
folding of the hands in the blanket couch. The 
surroundings were not pleasant, and we were not 
loth to be off on the way. The matinal repast 
was speeded and despatched with, at least, the re- 
puted American devouring haste. We set our 
shoulders to the wheel (figuratively) and helped 
the wagon out of its nocturnal dead-lock, hi day- 
light, it could scarcely have been driven purposely 
into such an environment of timber. Evanson left 
us for his solitary return journey, with many part- 
ing good wishes. We then lost no time in moving 
ourselves and the expeditionary paraphernalia to the 
river bank. 

Small meadows on either side, with live or six 
j'ude Indian cabins scattered over them, all but one 
on the Michigan shore, were the vista before as, 
called Badwater. A squalid Chippewa, with a 
few ragged redskin youiigsters, M'ere the populace 
that silently and curiously hung around. Across 
M'^as Tom King's cabin home. This name was an 
adopted alias. He was really, and of his race, 
and of kith and kin, known as Weawbiny-Ket. 
He was the particular native American we wished 
to hold present imparlance with. For further ad- 



SUMMER WAYFARING. 2i> 

vance, another canoe and another canoeist were 
essentiaL Tom was a sine qua non, therefore, and 
so was one of the two canoes he had. 

George bawled loudly at the cabin, and brought 
out the whole domestic circle, including Tom him- 
self, and hailed him to cross over. He launched a 
birch bark, and paddled it and himself into our 
presence. The interview was to the point, and the 
negotiation binef. We could have a canoe and we 
could have hinl. The legal tender required for the 
first was fifteen dollars, and the pe?' diem in cur- 
rency for the services was a dollar and a quarter. 
This was not hard on the collective exchequer, atid 
we accepted the terras, the vessel and Tom. Find- 
ing that this moderate item, in our general expense 
account, left us a liberal mai'gin within the estimate 
for the trijj, we thought it would not be unthrifty 
to charter another Chippewa auxiliary. 

The Badwater men of the tribe were out fencine; 
deer for winter venison. The only one at hand 
was the tawny vagrant we first saw. He, prob- 
ably, was too lazy or worthless to go fencing with 
his Tnore enterprising fellows. Thebault inter- 
preted our overtures to him. He, thinking he was 
the monopolist of all the present available paddling 
force of the hamlet, attempted to corner the market 
on ns, and struck for three dollars a day. As in 
fact the aboriginal triumvirate already engaged 
would well sufiice, his exorbitant terms were de- 
clined. When we pushed off, he gazed wistfully 



26 TliOUTING ON THE BRULE. 

at the departing squadron, as if lie felt lie had 
badly overdone the business, and had made himself 
a too greedy instance of vaulting ambition over- 
leaping itself. 

Tom King navigated his late canoe, with High, 
Bissell, and part of the luggage embarked in it. 
Pratt, myself and the bulk of the outfit, with George 
and Thebault for polers, were in the larger canoe, 
which we named the Dickey. "We set forth in high 
feather. This was my own first experience of birch 
bark navigation. The shaj)ely and fragile coracle 
sat on the water gracefully and in feather-like light- 
ness. Its treacherous unsteadiness and vagaries of 
equilibrium were speedily learned, and demanded 
a critical and ticklish nicety of poise or equilibra- 
tion quite new to me. We had to bestow ourselves 
most cautiously, squatted on our blanket bundles, 
with our legs awkwardly twisted, and cramping 
and bending ourselves low, making it an efibrt and 
a study to maintain the trim. The facility of 
careening, the peril of a heedless movement turning 
the balance, or of tipping her over, made our 
probational experiences and trials in attitudes and 
positions, for a time, anything but assuring. 

It was curious how fidgety we became and how 
often we wanted to shift positions, and had irrepres- 
sible tendency to motions we ought not to and dare 
not make. Of course, my immediate notion was, 
that the vaunted perfection of the canoe, as a pleas- 



SUMMER WAYFARING. 27 

lire boat, and the reputed clianns of canoeing;, were 
mytliical and a tale to be told to the marines. To 
me, the disaster of a ducking seemed too imminent 
to admit of any foolishness or indiscretion. Still, 
High, who knew the eccentricities of the birches, 
had told us we would get used to all that sort of 
thing. 

Oiir Menominees knew their business. One fore 
and one aft, they poled the canoe along shore, with 
tireless steadiness, and made it speed, mile after 
mile, with an ease and uniformity quite admirable 
and surprising to us. The Tom King — as we chris- 
tened our purchase from him — followed closely in 
our wake. High and Bissell puffiingly devoted 
their Chicago muscle to occasional short paddling, 
adding their by-play of momentum to Tom's push- 
ing. Tom surprised a wild duck napping among 
the grasses fringing the shore, and dispatched him 
with a stroke of his pole. This took the job off 
Pratt's hands of firing into the unwary water-fowl. 
By noon we had reached the mouth of the Michi- 
gami river, a few yards up which are the falls, a cas- 
cade of about thirty feet in hight, over which the 
whole stream rushes in one volume — but without 
any picturesque accessories. We ran in for lunch 
and to prepare for a portage. 

By overland, the distance is three miles to Brule 
Falls, while by river it is seven miles. We pur- 
posed sending all the load by the Dickey, and to 



28 TEOUTING ON THE BRULE. 

trail to the Paint, and as that river coines in near the 
falls, and would have to be crossed, to portage the 
smaller canoe for ferriage there. We were eager to 
reach, the river of trout sooner than we could by the 
water ascent, and besides, we wanted to relieve our- 
selves from the weariness of our compressed, and in- 
the-stocks-like, sitting in the canoe. The boys — for 
that was the term of designation of the guides among 
ourselves — ^having engaged in culinary procedure, 
High and I mounted our rods to employ the vacant 
interim in prospecting the waters for possible trout. 
Pratt and Bissell lazily reclined in the shade, sniff- 
ing the savoriness of the coming dinner. 

We brought up close under the falls, in the moist- 
ure of the spray, for the piscatory trial. I had the 
mishap of slipping a foothold from a wet boulder and 
pitched half over and in among sharp rocks, with 
the slight damage of peeling a shin. High posted 
himself on a projecting rock and patiently whipped 
the foaming element with his fly for a conjectnral 
trout, but it was love's labor lost, and when his as- 
siduity was at length rewarded with tlie capture of 
a worthless chub, he retired with intense disgust 
from his coigne of rock and from the experimental 
sport. 

But the ignominious chub proved a prelude 
of good Inck to me. I impaled it on my hook, and 
threw in a shallow pool, which was foamy and froth- 
bubbled and an eddy below the cascade. Some un- 



SUMMER WAYFARING. 29 

knoM'u straggler of tlie fins pounced on the bait, 
and dashed off with a few yards of line, bnt flopped 
off without making way with the chub. It was cast 
again, and had barely sunk nnder the foam, when 
quick, like an electrical effect, I felt the jerk and 
heavy pull of some fish that would put an angler's 
skill to the test. It nearly pulled me off my feet. 
The tip of the rod snapped, and the line went buzz- 
ing down stream. The broken tip prevented play- 
ing, but I perceived the fish was struck, and began 
reeling up, and then found I was dragging the cap- 
tive on the bottom. lie made a jump which 
foamed the water and revealed his size, but he was 
fast on the hook. I slowly worked him in. When 
it was apparent what a monster he was, High 
snatched up a slab and volunteered to brain him 
with the timber. I declined the barbarous sugges- 
tion, and brought him ashore legitimately. 

" Cast on the bant, he dies with gasping pains, 
And trickb'ng blood his silver mail distains." 

It proved to be a ten pound pickerel. That catch, 
when taken in, made a sensation in the camp. 
When I mentioned High's generous offer of smash- 
ing the fish, it was noted as one of the wonders of 
the country to kill ducks with a pole and catch fish 
with a club. 

Thebault and George loaded all the outfit in the 
larger canoe and started it up the river. Tom 
shouldered the smaller one and balanced it on his 



30 TEOUTING ON THE BKULE. 

head for tlie carry, and with it, trudged through the 
woods on a crooked path, as easily overcoming the 
obstacles of the way as any of us who only carried 
rods and baskets, and keeping equal pace with the 
party. This facility of portage, as, also, another 
nse to which it was put, when Tom slanted it, in- 
verted, against a tree, to shelter us all from a sud- 
den drenching shower, went far to dispel my skep- 
ticism as to the many boasted merits of the birch 
bark canoe. Bissell was ambitious to catch the 
iirst glimpse of the stream which was the longed- 
for scene of our sport, and with this aspiration as 
an accelerating impulse, kept the extreme front of 
the line of march. When, at length, he vocifer- 
ously shouted "Brule! Brule!" we huzzaed him 
back an uproarious answer, "the Brule! the Brule!" 
The Paint coming in there was frothy and foam- 
ing with rapids. AVe had to run the apparently 
portentous ordeal to reach the further shore of the 
Brule. It would be my first personal experience 
of the kind, and when I saw the water bursting 
madly over the rocks, and knew that the slightest 
miscalculation, or swerve, or accident, might cap- 
size the birch or dash it in pieces on a boulder, I 
was, at least, a trifle anxious. But I also knew 
that Tom King would hold it firmly and well in 
hand. We were scarcely seated, when almost before 
one could realize it, we were swept safely through 
and over, and touched our feet on the bank of the 
Brule. 



SUMMER WAYFARING. 31 

The fishermen were ready for a trial of the rod 
at the very first. Eagerness became enthnsiasm, 
and the party, excepting myself, at once sought 
places in which to throw their flies. I was not 
myself, jnst then, so piscatorially frantic as that 
"with wings as swift as meditation or the thoughts 
of love," I should sweep to my trouting. I pre- 
'ferred a leisurely stroll, to take in the situation. 
Straying only a few paces among the trees, I came 
upon a full-spread tent in which, through clouds of 
tobacco smoke, I discerned a party in shirt-sleeves, 
vigorously flipping cards in a game of old sledge. 
The gentleman, who said he had played the deuce 
for low, was first to see me, and his and my surprise 
were simultaneous and mutual. The surprise was 
for a few instants only. There was a greeting all 
around. I was invited to a camp-stool, and sat. 
AVho they were and from whence, who I was, my 
wherefrom and whereto, were mysteries only of the 
brief interval in which hasty self- introductions could 
be exchanged. Enough of their story and of their 
recent travel and happenings were made known to me 
to enable me soon afterwards, as mutual friend, to 
introduce them and our party. 

My comrades had straggled in, looking blank, as, 
in all their switching, neither had had a rise. But 
they forgot their chagrin in the pleasure of the 
new acquaintance, which was not long in being put 
on most friendly footing. Our tents were pitched 



32 TROUTING ON THE BRULE. 

near theirs. "We were iieiglibors at once. But 
the new friends did not divert Bissell from his rest- 
less and hopefnl ambition to swoop ont a mess, 
and with his rod he started out in quest of amuse- 
ment. When he rejoined ns, he cackled rather 
triumphantly over a single puny trout he had cap- 
nred, because it was the first trophy of the campaign. 
Our neighbors had a portable oven, and prepared 
ns a pan of biscuit which were as light as the 
bulbs of foam on the water, and with them and 
the spread from our own supplies, we thought the 
refection was elegant. Had Dickey been there to 
observe the gusto of enjoyment by ns, he would 
have seen that appetite had lost nothing of its 
healthiness by our further travel in pursuit of one. 
The evening and night wore delightfully away, 
in a circle of both parties around the camp-fire, 
in gossip of sport, travel and experience by field 
and flood. Our neighbors had been encamped 
here for a week. They had trouted no further than 
six or seven miles up the Brule. Their success 
had not been brilliant, and was not encouraging 
to us. But then the stream was lower than now, 
when it was swollen from the rains They had 
but just touched the region of prosperous fishing. 
But they soothed and consoled themselves in the 
confidence of making up for lost time and dearth 
of trout, by reprisals and comj^ensation on the 
deer down on the Menominee. They were excel- 



SUMMKIi WAYFARING. 33 

lentlj equipped for that sport as well as for com- 
fortable sojourn in the woods. These gentlemen 
were G. D, Hayden and G. Barry of Alton, aud W. 
W. Brown of Jacksonville. Our sociabilities with 
them were prolonged till late. When we retired to 
the blankets we were lulled into deepest sleep and 
into dreams by the murmur of the waters that tum- 
bled at our feet. 
3 



CHAPTEK III. 

GOOD-BYE TO NEW-MADE FRIENDS — ADVANCE ON THE BRULE 
— SKIRMISHING FOR TROUT — A FIRST TROUT AND WHOOP 
la! — WADING FOR FISH — CAMP THEBAULT — TROUT SUPPER 
— METAPHYSICS — A LEAKY TENT — TABLEWARE — HIGh's 
DIARIAL EFFORT — LITERARY RESOURCES — SUNDAY IN CAMP 
AND ON RIVER — TROUT RODS — SUNSHINE — CAMP-FIRE. 

While woodsmen, the weather prospects were 
our first concern. Beyond the range of Old Proba- 
bilities and his reports, we could only forecast the 
changes from the air and skies. To be drenched in 
the rain, or to shiver in a raw atmosphere, was not 
favorable to enterprises of pith and moment. The 
early morning signs, when we looked out and read 
the heavens, were portentous of showers, and boded 
no pleasant starting of our Alton friends downward, 
or of our own starting upward. The tokens, how- 
ever, somewhat later, were more hopeful. The cloud- 
iness while we were breakfasting and then smoking, 
partially dispersed, and fitful glimpses of sun came 
(34) 



SUMMER WAYFARING. 35 

tlirough, and mucli enlivened the prospects of the 
day and ourselves. The Alton party, when it was 
seen that no more than showers, and not torrents 
of rain were probable, struck its tent and shipped 
its impedimenta into the batteau; and after an 
exchange of warm parting civilities, embarked 
and rapidly dropped down out of view. 

Our care was, then, to pack up and pack off. Our 
mission of sport would be not really begun until 
we were on the bosom of the Brule. We thought 
ourselves weather-wise enough to predict a dry, if 
not clear day, so we set out hopefully. There 
were rapids at the month of the river. The Indians 
forced the canoes up the foaming torrent. We 
passed them by a flank movement on foot. High 
and Bissell sometimes tarried at points, and risked 
a footing on unsteady logs on the shore to throw a 
fly. The only success they had for their pains, was 
to permanently hang some of their tackle on ob- 
structive limbs. 

When rc-embarked, Pratt and myself, with Ka- 
quotash and Thebault, manned the large birch, and 
as the ai'inament was borne by it, it was the gun- 
boat of the flotilla. As we were now making head- 
way into the supposed domain of deer, bear, wolf, 
fox, mink, muskrat and duck, it was tit that our 
craft should lead the advance. It was Pratt's mission 
to deal with any hapless creature of the Brule ani- 
mal kingdom that might appear. 



36 TROUTING OX THE BRULE. 

Up to noon not a trout was taken. This did not 
dishearten ns, for we had not jet touched the 
verge of the trout fishing proper. But, after lunch, 
and an hour further on, the luring flj began to 
strike the responsive lish. The canoes were held 
at a stand, bj the setting poles, at intervals, and 
the water was vigorously \^ hipped with casts. As a 
troutsman, I was the decided novice of the party. 
My throwing was rather wild, and Pratt was more 
particular about it than I was, watching it more 
than he did his own, and, though I did not cause him 
an oj)tical catastrophe by whirling the liook in his 
eyes, he feared I would. As to twisting my line 
with his, or wrapping it round his rod, he didn't 
mind that much. It was merely our good luck 
that the canoe did not capsize, when he ducked his 
head down, on one side, to give my line clear swing, 
and threw her out of trim. His patience was above 
all praise. "Look out, King!" was the sharpest 
of his cautionary expostulations. I tried to look 
out, and I know he did himself, vigilantly look 
out. Kor had I the trained cunning of hand to 
securely fasten a fish. My jerking was too soon or 
too tardy. Pratt, however, was good enough to 
encourage me by telling me I would soon get my 
hand in. 

George ran the canoe to a large boulder which 
parted the river into swirls below it. I preferred 
it for a base to cast from, rather than from the 



SUMMER WAYFARING. 37 

canoe, in which I did not jet dare perjiendiciilar- 
ity. I stepped out on the rock, and cast a fresli flj. 
In a tM'inkling it was snatched at, and to raj sur- 
prise, I had reallj struck a trout of dimensions, as 
was plain from the livelj struggle it made. But I 
brought liim in. It was about a fourteen-ouncer. 
It was the first trout I ever cauglit. The achieve- 
ment brought down the house, and the whole party 
liuzzaed with a will. I was once told that the sensa- 
tion of catching one's first trout was akin to a 
father's elation over his first babj. That was a 
criterion of the ecstatic of which I had had onlj liear- 
saj experience, but, though in the taking of the trout 
there was a bit of satisfaction, it did not electrifj 
me into thrills of delight, even though inj victim, 
bj its size, dwarfed the pettier catches of the daj. 
The clouds began ominous lowering, and provi- 
dent forethought moved us on to the intended camp- 
ing place. George and Thebault knew the river 
and the eligibilities of shores, ground, situation, 
distance, etc., for encampment, and had an afore- 
thought spot selected. In the previous summer 
Thebault had camped and cooked there in the serv- 
ice of our bar brethren, George C. Campbell and 
Burton C. Cook, of Chicago. We pushed on stead- 
ilj, so as to forerun the rain. Bissell's taste of the 
sport was not satisfied with random casts from the 
canoe. He turned up his breeches and stepped out 
to wade the riffles and currents at will, in quest of 



38 TIIOUTING ON THE BRULE. 

more trout. He was left groping and stiirabling all 
about in the water, to be returned for with a canoe 
to carry him to camp. 

The camping ground was a high, steep grassy 
bank, at a bend, and with a space, under immense 
trees, ali-eady cleared for prior camps. "We had 
come to it in complacent mood. We had made a 
fair start in trouting. The record of the day, not 
so much for its count — fifty-five — but as a promise 
of better yet to come, a catching that was but a 
cheering prologue to the more lavish performance 
that was to follow, was eminently satisfactory. "We 
were just enough fagged to make rest enjoyable, 
and hungry enough to make the evening culinary 
process most appetizing. Of course onr board — 
literally so, a box cover — was luxuriously spread 
with a fry of trout, the first banquet of the fins to 
which we sat, and that, too, with stomach enough, 
Indian appetites included, to clear the platters. 

"While George was iioino- down to brino; Bissell in 
from his angling waddle in the stream, he started a 
deer. When he afterwards told us this, Pratt 
pricked up his ears, taking it for granted that the 
buck was a straggler or forerunner of a herd not far 
ofi'in the woods, and his eyes glistend at the thought 
that if there was such game afoot, there must be 
sport ahead. The mosquitoes burdened the air with 
their songs, but the oil and tar with which we copi- 
ously anointed ourselves served to rej^el them to 



SUMMEK WAYFAKIXG. 39 

respectful distance, until, at least, tlie malodorous 
ungueut lost its effect, and then tlie slicking was 
repeated. On tlie whole, in that, our first camping 
on the Brule, an eminent sense of satisfaction as to 
the day itself, and as to the prospects ahead, per- 
vaded the whole party. 

I turned in early, with a slight headache. My 
comrades had no idea of prematurely retiring with 
too much trout to healthily go to bed with; and 
while the camp-lire was wasting to embers and 
ashes, they reclined in the tent, in the fading re- 
flection of the dying light. Tliey were not, then, 
the contemplative men anglers are said to be. Be- 
tween the snatches of sleep, I heard high discourse 
among them about Darwin, evolution, Swedenbor- 
gianism, and also other rauibling profundities of 
theory and speculation. When their jaws wearied at 
last of their verbosity and of what, in my somnolence, 
appeared incoherent and windy twaddle, another per- 
turbing element to prevent an " exposition of sleep " 
coming upon me, was a rain which set in. This 
of itself should have proved only a gentle lullaby 
to slumber, but, to the common dismay, it was 
found that the tent was leaky, and the shower was 
dripping through it. 

Our concern was more for the provisions than 
for ourselves, and though the ponchos at hand had 
not been a success on the wagon route, in the way 
of shedding continuous torrents, thej^ were imper- 



40 TROUTJNG ON THE BKULE. 

vioiis to the drip of tbe leaks, and the stores ah-eady 
in the tent were covered with rubber coats. These 
protected the commissariat well enongh, but left us 
exposed to the drizzle. However, the general hu- 
midity and discomfort of tlie situation, and the 
dampness of "the drapery of the couch," did not 
prevent the party from finall}^ settling into stillness 
again, and from slumbers that would have been re- 
freshing if they had been more prolonged. But the 
mosquitoes swarmed early to their morning onset, 
and brought us to the scratch and fretted us merci- 
lessly. Even the customary dope lost some of its 
repelling virtue. Tlie consequence was, we were 
irritated and unwilling early risers. 

For the breakfast, Thebault eclipsed all his pre- 
vious culinary successes, in the way of fried corn- 
meal cakes, in Indian style. Probably a knack 
for preparing the native maize, in its simple and 
natural excellence, is an inherited or traditional 
trick of the native race, but, in this instance, In- 
dian instinct was blended with enlightened art in 
forming a superb farinaceous product. Our salle a 
manger was the ground under spreading foliage. 
AVe squatted on blanket bundles, or on a log, for 
sitting at the board. The crockery and china ser- 
vice were platters, and cups of tin, span new. They 
were better to us than pieces of Sevres or porcelain. 
Though not decorated Avith any of the infinite 
designs or tracings of the ceramic art, in their glis- 



SUMMER WAYFARING. 41 

tening spotless lustre we could see our own broad- 
ened and grinning faces reflected. 

High, thinking the shining morning calm was pro- 
pitious for working up his diary, carefully fixed him- 
self in the mossy root of a tree, opened his neat mo- 
rocco-covered red-edged note book, began jotting 
down, for the spouse at home, the events — a kind of 
pilgrim's progress — of the trip. The arrearage of the 
past days of our itineracy, the book so far being in- 
nocent of a single diarial pencil trace, appeared too 
much for any reasonable patience and diligence at 
his command. Besides, to recall and set down the 
wretchedness of our first days on the road in the 
rain and in the dumps, was, in a degree, to renew 
and go through all those infelicities again. He pre- 
ferred not to live them over, even by way of reminis- 
cence. He said he was disgusted ; that a diary 
was a plague anyhow ; that his promise to his wife 
was neither willing nor considerate ; that to keep it 
was not practicable ; that his cue, now, M'as the 
rod and not the pencil. He was on the point 
of declaring an absolute rescission of the contract 
with his wife. I ventured to remonstrate with him, 
and rallied him on the enormity of his threatened 
recreancy to the obligations of loving and well regu- 
lated husbandry. He said he would further con- 
sider, and at least would pledge to us all that he 
would tabulate in his note-book the figures of our 
fishino'. 



42 TKOUTING ON THE BliULE. 

It was Sunday, and we liad the Sunday question 
to deal with. How to put in the day — read, sleep, 
iish? There was a limited supply of profane lit- 
erature in camp, but not any sacred, snited to the 
day. 'No Moses or Mattliew, but some Victor Hugo 
and Wilkie Collins. For short exercises in read- 
ing that would not over-tax the mind, I had Timb's 
"Century of Anecdote." All of it was pretty thin 
nutriment and not at all sanctifying and but slightly 
more entertaining. The fact was, we had an im- 
pression that reading, even novel reading, was 
rather out of order, or an incongruity, in a party 
the first postulate of whose progamme was com- 
plete mental rest. The trip was intended as a fur- 
lough and ofi'-duty to the collective and individual 
brains of the Chicago galaxy. By no very subtle 
casuistiy we satisfied oui-selves that literature was, 
therefore, not just the recreation for the day before us. 

High, as the veteran, experienced in Sabbatizing 
in the w^oods, after some yawning and wearisome 
louuging, equipped himself for reverent diversion 
with the fishes, and committed himself to Tom and 
the canoe for combined meditation and fly-fishing, 
up the silent river. The example contagiously iji- 
fected Pratt and myself, and, under the guidance 
of Thebault, our canoe was sped on the waters in 
similar quest of edification and trout. Bissell was 
truer to the day, to the traditions of his Christian 
ancestry, and to the teachings of the shorter cate- 



SUMMER WAYFAKING. 43 

cliisiii. lie laid Lis rod on the slope of the tent for 
unbroken Sunday rest. He remained in the camp, 
and, on the plea of necessity, employed a consider- 
able degree of his thouglitful reverence for the day 
in patching his breeches and in overhauling his rig, 
and then further satisfied his meditative disposition 
in a solemn perusal of one of V^ictor Hugo's ro- 
mances. His sartorial efforts would have done 
credit to one of those nine wiseacre tailors of Tooley 
street. 

We stopped here and there at hap-hazard to cast 
about us. We could get rises at nearly any point. 
I was more than ever satisfied how little I knew, and 
how much I had to learn, of trout fishing, and that 
I was not particularly well fitted out to learn. My 
earlier piscatorial experiences and trophies of any 
at all notable sort with game fishes were wholly 
those of bass-fishing in Southern Indiana. I had, 
without conferring with any one who could have 
enlightened me as to the best or the proper outfit, 
provided myself with only a bass rod, of perhaps 
eighteen ounce weight. It is true, in choosing it, 
1 had an eye to use in the lacustral bonanzas of bass 
on and in reach of oui* route of which I liad heard. 
But even the taste, already, of fronting had almost 
wholly disenamored me of bassing. The rod for 
bass, I now saw was not the rod for trout. Mine 
had too little of the whip, or of springiness, and 
required a more muscular arm than mine to. wield 



44 TROUTING ON THE BKULE. 

it slasliingly and wliizzinglj. Just what it was not 
I knew from Pratt's slender and elastic eight ounce 
rod, which he handled lithelyand lightly, almost as 
freely as if it were a lady's riding whij). 

We landed at the head of a small island and in 
the shore chute, and Pratt happened to strike a lusty 
trout, but in lifting it, got his rod demoralized 
among the limbs, and lost the fish. The river was 
running comparatively high, with the swell of the 
late rains. Most of the riffles of the normal stage 
were covered and swollen into smooth, swift cur- 
rents. It was easily canoed with the pushing poles. 
They would strike bottom anywhere except in rare 
deep holes. The water was little roiled even with 
the washes of the rain; its bed w^as gravelly or rocky. 
As a consequence of the tumid volume of the stream, 
the trout seemed dispersed from ordinary pools, and 
sca'tered broadcast through the whole river at laro-e, 
so that wherever we chose to hold up, and cast from 
either side, we were almost sure of striking the 
vagrant fish. 

While out in the afternoon we were wetted with 
the usual shower. We very little minded a spr.nkle 
or a moderate rain. After we returned from our 
cruising, Pratt went gunning, a few paces in the 
woods, and broke the solemn forest silence with a 
shot wdiich brought down a solitary pigeon that 
was stupid enough to moan its loneliness in a pine- 
tree top so near the camp. After the evening re- 



SUMMER WAYFARING. 45 

past we loitered around the fire, some of us dili- 
gently burning tobacco in the pipes and listening to 
the Indians, who related to us their forest adven- 
tures, and incidents of their tra2:)piiig mink, otter, 
martin and beaver, in these and other regions. If 
we had needed more than the oppressive stillness, 
the deep shadows and heavy foliage which over- 
spread us, to remind us that we were in the wilds 
of nature, the howl of a wolf which we heard in the 
distance would have been assurance enouirh. 



CHAPTEK IV. 

THE WINDFALL — RAIN AND TROUTING — BAIT-FISHING — AN 
EXPOSTULATORY FLY-FISHER — UNDER THE CEDARS — 
A NIGHT SCENE OF THE PICTURESQUE — LORENZO PRATT'S 
FRIVOLITY — ADIEU TO AVINDFALL — THE FUTURE CAMP — A 
LANTERN HUNT ORGANIZED — BISSELL AS A MEDICINE- MAN. 

Though we Lad slept coldly and brokenly, it was 
joyous in the morning to greet, with opening eyes, 
a full flush of sunshine and a cloudless sk}'^, really 
the first of the trip. These happy auspices were 
enjoyed and hailed by us as signs of weather fair- 
ness and bettering, and of splendor for the day, at 
least, and we hoped for many days. Before leav- 
ing, the camp was formally christened Camp The- 
bault, in honor of him whose masterly cunning in 
the kitchen department had won tlie good opinion 
of lis all. 

"With exhilaration and bright as the glow of the 
morning, we embarked for up-river, and for a time 
on the way, the beams of the sun touched the rip- 
(46) 



SUMMER WATFAEING. 47 

pies, made by onr cutting the water, into dazzling 
sparkles. But after all and after a while, the cheer- 
ing resplendence proved delusive and fleeting. Tlie 
day, ere long, turned out to be like one of April, 

"Which now shows all the beauty of the sun, 
And by and by a cloud takes all away." 

As it were, a dim smoke, a shadow, crej)t up in the 
west, and soon formed into a cloud which rapidly 
advanced and spread. If not portending a storm, 
it, at least, boded a shower. The full capacity of 
propelling power was aj^plied to hurry us to the 
Windfall. This is a point fifteen miles from the 
mouth of the river, where a tornado liad leveled 
the forest at some not remote period. We could, 
at the same time, dine and shelter there. 

To make for and reach the Windfall before the 
rain was then all that our foresight and timely press- 
ing speed barely enabled us to do. The Menominees 
got the tent set almost in a jiffy, and we and the 
cargo were no more than under cover, when a most 
copious rain began. On the way up, we had not been 
idle or indifferent as to fronting, but had vigorously 
slashed the lines on the water, tarrying briefly by a 
tree, a log, under riffles, or alongside of a boulder, or 
in a smooth reach. The baskets were plentifully re- 
plenished, and with choicer spoils, on the average, 
than those of previous sport. There had been other 
Brule voyagers here at some former season. We 
discovered, in the l)ushe*s, an abandoned bircli-bark, 



48 TKOUTING ON THE BRL'LE. 

in a stage of decrepitude wliicli sliowed that its 
career of floating was ended. A sorry looking 
rusted camp kettle, also, hung on a branch near by 
it. Like ourselves, doubtless the navigators of the 
craft had put in at so forbidding a point, under a 
stress of necessity. There was not a single attract- 
ive feature in the whole landscape. 

We appeased the customary noon-day hunger on 
a trout dinner. The rain had abated sufficiently 
to allow of frying by the camp lire. In a pause 
of the elements. High sallied out with his rod, ^nd, 
from a neighboring log, essayed the stream a short 
while, and was successful in killing a number of 
handsome fish. He quoted an accepted piscatory 
authority that trout will not rise after a rain, and now 
claimed that his replete basket avouched a different 
story as to the ready hungering propensity of Brule 
trout, at least. Seeing the results of this breeze of 
prosperity that set upon High even under the cloud, 
all of us ventured on an afternoon fronting cruise. 
High and. I had our canoe guided up stream. I 
brought to the boat one of tlie mammoths of the 
water. George reached out to seize it, but it flopped 
off, and sliot away like a lightning flash. 

We had wandered some distance from camp, when 
the remorseless clouds suddenly trooped up again, 
from all quarters. The densest shower of the day 
burst upon us. We as well as our comrades in the 
other birch, made for a group" of towering cedars over- 



SUMMER WAYFARING. 49 

brandling the water, and laid by underneath. We 
harbored there an hour, patiently waiting the stop 
or slackening of the down-pour, all the while, too, 
the percolating drops pelting us until we were 
"demnition moist." There was no surcease, and 
but little moderating of the rain, and after all our 
pains to escape a shower-bath, we were forced to 
face the watery music and run the efFnsive gauntlet 
down to camp. Spite of the day's adverse condi- 
tions, though, we could compute sensations of 
pleasure to an aggregate of one hundred and forty- 
five, for the party, those being the figures of joint 
capture. 

AVhile out with High, I tried a pink fragment of 
Pratt's pigeon on my hook. It proved a taking 
dainty for the trout, and with it, I snapped them up 
vigorously, for me, at least. This sort of fishing 
was an abomination, and utterly immiiigable, to 
High. It was bait-fishing, and baiting for trout, 
whether the bait were worm, flesh, fowl, fish or 
natural insect, or whatev'er else, was simply a gross 
and vulgar folly. Fly-fishing is the only fishing 
for him. He was our artistic and expert trout 
angler. He had victoriously trouted in the Rocky 
Mountain regions, and has proud memories of 
Bear and Snake river salmon-trout. He is a learned 
pundit and savan in the genesis and products of 
artificial-fly entomology. His own fly-book is a 
curiosity shop of the vagaries and inventions of 
4 



50 TltOUTING ON THE BRULE. 

insect maimfactnre, a petty mnseuin of glm-cracks 
made of wire, hair, floss, feathers and tinsel, called 
flies, probably because they have so little resem- 
blance to any known creatures of the natural fly 
family. These are to him the only allowable trout 
lures and deceits. 

Bait, therefore, to High is a scarcely pardona- 
ble impiety, and nothing less than piscatory bar- 
barism. The fellow that trouts with fish, flesh or 
fowl, he thinks, will never come to any good, 
and justifies Doctor Johnson's crabbed fleer, that 
angling is a stick and a string with a worm (or 
bait) at one end, and a fool at tlie otlier. But for all 
his reprobatory pantomime of features, I kept my- 
self on the best of terms with the trout, and persisted 
in enticing them with slices of pigeon. He, also, 
practices constant casting, with the rod-arm in per- 
petual see-sawing, to barely tip the water with the 
fly, and then give it a back over-shoulder throw for 
a cast again from behind; or sometimes he tickles 
the stream with his tackle, by skipping it along tlie 
surface. In the floo-frina: mode of castins^. I could 
not pretend to be his peer. A thought of rivaling 
him in it would have been absurd, if only for the 
reason that my flexors and extensors were consti- 
tutionally une(|ual to sucli practice with eighteen 
ounce tackle. 

When the starless, beclouded night came on, our 
group, the tents and canoes, presented a striking 



SUMMER WAYFARING. 51 

scene of tlie picturesque. Our pyre of pine trunks 
was blazing near our tent; the other, the cooking 
fire, being further in front. Tlie canoes were on the 
ground, turned up on edge and at right angles with 
each other, forming a half square aflank tlie native's 
burning log heap, to make a shelter for their sleep- 
ing. The firelight flickering in their dusky visages 
as they moved and stole about in luminous relief 
against the night beyond, with their ceaseless chat- 
ter of Menominee, seeming to alienize them still 
more to our fancies, or to sound as mj'sterious 
voices of the night, gave them a weird or phantom- 
like aspect, or made them seem apparitions, like the 
Macbeth witches — " on the earth but not of it." 

We had hardly ceased musing on the scene of 
the nocturnal picturesque, when Pratt surprised us 
by an ill-timed pleasantry. The untoward news 
had come to us from the chief of the scullery, that 
the caddy of lard was nearly exhausted. This com- 
modity was so important an element in the cookery 
of the camp, that a total deficit thereof was regard- 
ed as a dispensation too serious for serene contem- 
plation. As a matter touching the food question, 
it was a vital point, and we thought it was trifling 
with the gravity of the prospect for Pratt to inflict 
upon us a bit of heartless jocularity by telling us 
that it had been a doubt with High and Bissell, 
whether a caddy of lard should be added to our 
stores, as a needful supply; but, for his part, he 



52 TROUTING ON THE BRULE. 

tlioiiglit.it "safest to be on the Zart?'* side," and 
had, therefore, brought the useful caddy along. 
This grim and irreverent facetiousness only provoked 
from us the withei'ing rebuke of silence which 
promptly subdued him. AVe hid ourselves in the 
blankets to sleep. It may have been a deserved 
retribution that Pratt's wicked joke, j^ossibly, had 
perturbed him in the night, like a horrid phantom 
returning to plague the inventor, for, in the morn- 
ing he complained of unwonted insomnia. 
^ We were prompt enough to make a start from 
the Windfall. We had only run in there for j)ro- 
tection against the rain. It was a low, flat ground, 
thickly luxuriant with bushes and alders. The few 
trees left by the tornado stood out, apart, and skele- 
ton-like, gaunt and branchless, the naked trunks 
blasted and charred by fire, which, at some time, blew 
in gusts of flame over what the breath of the tem- 
pest spared. None of us slept comfortably. The air 
was damp, raw and chilly, and sleeping in couples, 
the joint exertions of both the pairs were unequal 
to the problem of warmth and comfort. Thus far, 
this was the only occasion of coolness between any 
of us. High was an experienced Rocky Mountain 
blanketeer, and knew more than any of us about 
sleeping out of nights, and, also, from his army 
teaching, had learned what manner of blanket would 
be needed. His red and gray California blankets 
were of a size and weight to make ours, in the com- 



SUMMER WAYFARING. 53 

parison, seem mere airy, thin apparitions of blankets. 
Bissell, as liis bed-fellow, got their benefit. 

These were not arctic latitudes by any means, 
but here, even in August, which down at Chicago 
usually burns with something of tropical heat, thick 
clothing, stuffs of wool, instead of flax or cotton, 
are necessities of open-air life. The coat one wears 
against the blast of a norther from Lake Michigan, 
and the heavy midershirt one takes to his bosom, 
when the Fahrenheit marks zero, and the cutting 
January air whistles along the South Park boule- 
vard, are the garments for all nights, and lor fre- 
quent days, on a summer voyage on the Brule. 
The hemlocks are always spoliated for boughs, for 
a ground stratum on which to spread the blankets. 
Their elasticity and balsamic breath seem to be a 
happy contrivance of nature for the very purpose of 
supplying such satisfying use. 

The further limit of our bearings and depart- 
ures was a point about fifteen or sixteen miles 
up from the mouth. It was the intention to pitch 
the tent there for the longest sojourn. From 
that point, is a trail to a triplet of small lake , 
separated by short distances. The water-sheets 
are called Boot Lakes. The first of them is noted 
as fertile in bass and as a resort for deer. We 
looked forward to the vicinage of the lakes of Boot 
as our land of promise for venison. The Indians 
spoke hope's flattering tale to us of the plenty of 



54 TEOUTING ON THE BKULE. 

deer that frequented the region. Our autochthones 
liunt them at night, and in tlie canoe, with a dark 
lantern. While the birch is creeping along shore, 
thej are concealed behind a bark shield, with the 
light in front of it streaming out ahead. The ani- 
mals in the bushes, or splashing in the water, when 
cro23ping the grasses or wa'er-lilies, on the brink or 
in the sloughs, are dazed and bewildered by the 
glare, and stand still as if spell-bound, while their 
eyes glare luminously from the reflection, making 
them a shining mark for the hunter, who is steal- 
ing closely on them, so that the shooting is e .sy 
and the result nearly certain. 

Boot lake trail was reached in the afternoon. 
In the usual tarrying by the way, we had intervals 
of sport in which the waters were flagellated so 
prosperously that we punished more of the trout 
than we could use, returning the useless ones to the 
water. The appeai-ance of the camping ground was 
far from captivating. A little island fronted it 
across a petty groove of stream. It was a flat sit- 
uation, and adjacently it was marshy. A small 
spring oozed out near at hand, and a tiny limpid 
rill of coldness flowed — enough to supply our drink- 
ing cups with pure draughts. There w^as just 
enough dry, sandy surface for camj) use. There 
was only the shade of a ragged tree over the tent. 
But as our business was Ashing, we would be but 
little at the camp, and when there, for the most part 



SUMMER WAYFARING. 55 

the night would hide its uninviting aspects in the 
common obscurity. 

We began to sate, or rather the appetite 
lost much of its keenness in the superfluity of 
trout, and our desire was now for venison. We 
were on the tip-toe of expectation for diet of 
deer. Our first concern, when our house was set in 
order, was to prepare for a hunt that very night. 
Tom King and Thebault were to try their hands as 
deer-slayers, and at six o'clock they filed out on the 
path to Boot lake, with a shouldered canoe, which, 
however the hunting might turn out, was to be left 
at the lake for bassing next day, specially for my 
benefit. Bissell had been seized by the preposter- 
ous whim of taking a little exercise, and was not 
to be laughed out of it, and went along merely to 
ply his legs. On his return in a couple of hours, 
he gave us to understand that he had had all the 
gratuitous exercise he wanted — quite enough for all 
the trip — and was a tired but a wiser man. 

We were doubtful about the prospering of the deer 
enterprise. As it cost us nothing, and the Indians* 
were to bear the burden of the work, while we only 
bore the burden of suspense,we had encouraged them 
to the attempt, in the face of unfavorable conditions. 
One of these was the moon, which shone through 
the clouds. The other was the windiness. These 
turned the chances against success. The deer scent 
keenly when a breeze is stirring. The illumination 



56 TEOUTING ON THE BRULE. 

pales in the moonlight. Our men, for want of a 
lantern, provided a screen of bark with a candle in 
a split. It was liable to flare or blow out in the 
wind. Though by no means sanguine, we hoped 
for success. Our imaginations pictured deer, and 
all the mouths in camp watered for venison. I had 
a headache that throbbed and throbbed me. Bis- 
sell put his versatile wits at work to devise me 
some relief, assuming to act as medicine-man and 
therapeutist. I prefei-red the headache to his pre- 
scribed remedies. Finally, he prescribed Doctor 
Sangrado's invariable panacea — warm water,without 
the blood-letting. I swallowed about a quart of the 
Brule, tepid and salted. The pickle really helped 
to relieve me in the manner predicted. 



CIIAPTEK Y. 

TOO MOONSHINY — MINK MARAUDERS — GOING A-BASSING — 
BOOT LAKE — ROUGH TRAIL — BROILED BASS FOOD FOR MINKS 
— THE WHOLE HOG GONE — LAST DAY AT UPPER CAMP — DOE 
AND FAWNS — RED SQUIRRELS — LIVELY TROUTING — RETRO- 
GRESSIVE AND DOWNWARD— CAMP OCCUPATION— MOSQUI- 
TOES. 

The candle-bearers returned at midniglit. They 
brought in nothing but themselves, and were so 
tired they could liardly do that. Tom King told 
the whole story of failure sententiously when he 
said, "It too much moonshine," at the same time 
glancing spitefully at the moon. They had seen a 
couple of deer, but in truth the deer had seen them, 
too, and their velocity of departure was something 
marvelous. But Tom said we would have enough 
of deer in going down the Menominee, and on the 
strength of that soothing prediction, we resumed 
our slumbers. While we slept, the enemy came and 
despoiled us of the breakfast mess. The pick of the 
(57) 



58 TKOUTING ON THE BliULE. 

day's trout had been dressed, and laid out over night 
in beautiful array, on the provision box, right close 
to the nostrils of George, where lie must have been 
frightfully snoring, as was his wont, under the 
canoe. The minks stole a march on the sleeping 
sentinel at his post, and made a foray on the fish, 
and portaged the entire lot to their holes. This 
misliap was the occasion of various impromptu ex- 
pressions of temper in emphatic vernacuhir phrases, 
as well as in voluble Indian lingo. 

As well in respect of other supplies, as in the case 
of the lard, we had miscalculated the relations of 
demand and supply. Our appetitive faculties in- 
creased from the start, so much at odds or out of 
tally with the appetitive supply, that we were fairly 
running short of stores. To meet the contingency 
we should have to moderate the consumption, reduce 
the rations, or change our base, and that, too, speed- 
ily. There was already a potato dearth in the camp, 
and by some of the party the esculent tubers were 
thouffht as much a staff of life as bread itself. In 
this fact of scarcity alone, we foresaw an early 
retroo-ressive move. 

The weather omens were, at first, unpropitious 
for the intended bassing at Boot lake. The sky was 
sullen with clouds that threateningly hovered, and 
in the earlier hours we were dismal indeed, with a 
prospect of a stupid, lagging day on the camp 
ground; but we knew the fickleness of the elements 



SUMMER AVAYFARIXG. 59 

liere; and, surelj enough, just like themselves, ere 
a great while the "base, contagious clouds" van- 
ished, leaving not a rack behind. The Boot lake 
business then came on the tapis. I was the only 
volunteer ready to respond. Bissell had disen- 
chanted himself of any more Boot lake, by his su- 
pererogatory^ and romantic exercise over there the 
last evening, and to go again was like the task of 
Sisyphus. Pratt and High had no fancy for bass, 
and still less for the miserable trail that led to them. 
Still, they admitted it was reasonable that I should 
have a fair field for bassing, and that the expedi- 
tion should proceed. A canoe was already await- 
ing it on that placid water. Who was to be my 
companion there was settled only by an impartial 
conscription by lot. Bissell drew the short twig 
from High's disinterested fingers, and was elected. 
Pratt and High sl^dy tipped themselves the wink, 
and happily twirled the longer twigs, the tokens of 
their better luck, and quietly chuckled at their es- 
cape from trials of the route and from the tamer 
sporting for bass when so much superb trouting was 
more handy. 

The pathwa^^ to the lake was nearly a mile of all 
the worst features of a forest trail. We had logs to 
climb over or leap, bogs and swamps to flounder in, 
hills to scuffle up, ravines to cros-, briars to scratch 
us, and bushes to switch in our fjices. How a canoe 
could be made to furrow its way through those 



60 TROUTING ON THE BKULE. 

woods was a mystery, but it had been done. "We 
struck the leg ])art of tlie boot-shaped hike at a 
beaver dam, launcliing there, and had to paddle 
through a little wilderness of reeds, water-liiies, 
sunken branches and scattered logs, so intertangled 
that passage was a matter of patience and trouble. 
Both Thebault and Tom grunted with the task. 
But once in full swing on the clear, deep water of 
the foot-shape of the lake, we were ready tor busi- 
ness in the noted haunt of bass. It is according 
to Gunter to bass with minnows for bait. But it 
was impossible to capture a single one, and we were 
compelled to fall back on pork. 

It was short experience to find that the adipose 
tissue of the unclean flesh was as killing a bait as the 
ininim of tins. My pinch of bacon fat had but just 
left a greasy film and sunk under the surface, when 
it was snapped up and run away with, several fathoms 
length of line. I was equal to the occasion, and 
hauled in a thumping green bass. Bissell's bait 
of pork was appropriated with like prompt voracity, 
and he hitched on his trout-rod a three-pounder of 
shining viridesceiice, which sorely tested the elas- 
ticity and strength of his wand. And so it went on. 
The fish so eagerly took the hook, and the playing 
in was such heavy, dull and simply muscular busi- 
ness, that it was more work than play to catch them. 
Mv line presently took a freak of twisting and foul- 
ing, and so the reel clogged and worked badly, or 



SUMMER WAYFARING. 61 

not at all; but, in truth, the fun was too tame and 
unexciting to warrant the repeated requirement of 
time and patience to set the tackle to rights, and I 
early and willinglv rested from ray labors. Bissell, 
too, soon tired of a monotony that he fancied was 
not much sport and was a good deal of toil. We had 
parted eleven of the bass from their native element. 
Besides, a breeze had sprung up and roughed the 
waters into wavelets. We were quite willing to 
give it our adieus and leave Boot lake to its usual 
solitude. The canoe, the bass and ourselves were 
in camp again at noon. 

The sky was now clear, and more of the infinite 
azure was seen than on any of our days. We availed 
ourselves of such an auspicious circumstance to 
give apparel and blankets an airing. They were 
hung around to take the genial sunshine and the 
ventilating breeze, but scarcely added any pictur- 
esqueness to the scene. While Tom and Tliebault 
were clinking the kettle and pan, and preparing the 
bass to be served for dinner, Bissell and I shaded 
ourselves in the tent and scribbled; he was sketch- 
ing our trip for the press, and read to me some of 
his graphic touches. High and Pratt had been 
doing a forenoon cruise, but as they never were 
known to lag superfluous anywhere or far-off when 
dinner smelt re^dy to their educated and hankering 
nostrils, they were in on time. They brought a 
fine mess of trout, which were speedily consigned 



62 TROUTING ON THE BRULE. 

to the frying pan, and then served on the board, 
and onr appetite being edged up to nicety and deli- 
cacy on tliem, the grosser course — fry of bass — was 
distasteful, and after a few morsels eaten, was igno- 
miniously dispensed with, and the whole lot of Boot 
lake spoil was chucked into the bushes, as rubbish 
for the minks. 

Bissell and I started the canoe out in the after- 
noon to skim some of tlie neighboring waters. 
The angling was all well enough until my rod got 
in the way of disjointing itself in the cast, the last 
joint and the tip, with the line running from the 
reel, and dropping in the water. Two or three in- 
stances of this severance of the pieces were tolera- 
ble, but when it became habitual, the mishap was 
calculated to make one a trifle irritable. The means 
were not at hand to remedy the mischief, and as this 
was a nuisance to Bissell as well as vexation to me, 
in a degree spoiling his sport and entirely ruinous 
to mine, I had myself puslied back to camp. He, 
with one of the boys, started out again in further 
pursuit of his mission, and it proved to be a pros- 
perous one. 

Pligh and Pratt had also enriched themselves with 
much booty of the Brule. The day's total return 
was one hundred and seventy-three. We learned at 
the camp lire that the subsistence department was 
almost depleted of pork and potatoes. They were 
prime articles of consumption. As a staple in the 



SUMMER WAYFAEING. 63 

woods, no fisli, otlier flesh, or fowl, can compare with 
the products of the indispensable hog. A pound 
of a porker up on the Brule is woi'tli more, for steady 
diet, than some scores of trout. "We needing the 
essential pig, the question of longer staying virtually 
settled itself To retrace our course was, therefore, 
a necessity, but a much regretted one. Here our 
sport h'ad been, and would continue, best and most 
generous. 

The last night at this camp was peculiar for its 
splendid moonlight and its sharp air. All the cov- 
ering at command was put to service for our 
sleeping. The breakfast trout had been precau- 
tionally placed in the tent under common guard, 
to secure them from the furtive minks, and fur- 
nished us a choice repast early, wliile yet the rose- 
ate hues of morning tinged the east. We j)urposed 
making a last full half day's ranging of the waters, 
and so to make the most of the time. Higli aftd 
myself, with Kaquotash as our canoeist, stemmed 
the current upwardly. 

While rounding a bend, an exciting view pre- 
sented itself On the point of an island, directly 
facing us, and a fair mark, in gun range, stood a doe 
and twin fawns. The sun on the water must have 
dazzled them, for they were motionless, a couple of 
minutes. This was my first sight of deer on the trip ; 
in fact, it was the first of my life, of wild deer in the 
woods. I thought I now knew somethino^ of the 



64 TEOUTING ON THE BRULE, 

buck-fever I had heard of, and was realizini^ some of 
those sui generis febrile symptoms in the excitement 
and thrill of the scene. The sight was a kind of fas- 
cination. We held ourselves motionless, too, from 
fear of breaking the spell. We could only gaze, 
wonder and admire. Pratt's gun and projectiles, 
of course, were lying in their cover, in harmless 
disservice in the away-off camp. We could only 
enjoy the view as a matchless picture of grace and 
beauty. All at once the doe pricked up her ears, 
seeing or scenting danger, and wliirled around her 
white tail on us, the fawns doing the same, and all 
stampeded into the bushes. The tableau vanished 
like an instantly dissolving view. 

We scared a saw-bill duck into fits, from a nook 
of water, under a clump of bushes, wliere we sur- 
prised it napping, and heard its obstreperous squawk 
and flapping of the water far in the distance. We 
frequently heard pigeons humming their wings. 
At the camp, or near about, was a community of 
small, red squirrels. One of these ruddy free for- 
esters seemed to haunt, or be partial to a particular 
tree which he thought was a convenient observa- 
tory of our camp. He ^liked to cock upon a limb, 
wagging his brush, and keeping his quizzing (yes 
in our direction. He and myself came to know 
each other by sight, and allowed ourselves the priv- 
ilege of mutual close approach and free parley. 
Once, when he presumed too much on his short 



SUMMER WAYFARING. 65 

acquaintance, and impudentlv chattered at me, I 
flung a chunk at liim just to teach liim manners. 
The projectile was a lesson not exactly to his taste, 
and he was not afterward so friendly, and quit 
frisking among the branches of our trysting tree. 
How much game there might be in the depths of 
the woods, and what it is, were not kno^vn to us, 
much less was it sought by us. Staking the forest 
to hunt would be a task of such difficulty in the 
face of almost impassability, that, ev^en with the 
stoutest legs, the most dauntless spirit would re- 
coil from it. 

The fronting that morning was exceptionally su- 
perb. Our Menominee appeared to have an instinct 
when and where to halt. Generally the fish jumped 
as fast as we could throw, and, like little meteors, they 
shot and shot again. Sometimes, as if in a freak of 
playfulness, the same fish dashed in and out in hop, 
skip and jump style. In one cast made, the same 
trout, by actual count, leaped a dozen times after 
the fly, which was tweaked or skipped along the 
surface without re-throwing. This one was a nim- 
ble tumbler, and flirted pretty somersaults in chase 
of the tantalizing fly in the neatest way. 

To me, a novice, much of the charm of fly-fishing 
was in the brilliant, sometimes comical, leaping 
activities and topsy-turvy inversions of the trout. 
They vaulted in all the forms of grace and beauty, 
and looked like flashing jets or spurts of color from 
5 



60 TROUTING ON THE BRULE. 

tlie stream. They frisked as readily at the touch of 
my fly to the water as they did at the knack with 
which High allured them. But he had the cunning 
of the experienced angler in his hand — that timely 
skillful twitching of the wrist which gives the killing 
touch which marks much of the difference between 
the anorlins verdant and the veteran. It was that 
deft knack of wrist that made any trifling or non- 
sense about his hook dangerous to the trout, and, in 
the count, made him come out with great numbers 
ahead of me. 

On return to camp, the traps w'ere found ready 
and arranged for departure, and it was but brief 
manipulation to prepare the trout and serve them 
for the feast. It was a penury, not of tronting sport, 
but of staple provisions that impelled us to a return- 
ing movement. By a vigorous parsimony in pork, 
and similar economy in potatoes, in pinching con- 
trast to the careless profuseness of those substantials, 
with which we had, all the way, marched into the 
bowels of the land, w^e had up to this very lunch, 
eked out some of each to serve our needs. But now, 
the tale was to]d,fuli2?o?'cus, solanum tuberosum 
non est, the whole hog was gone and the wholesome 
tuber is not! 

After carvins: on a memorial tree the names of 
the party, and the oflicial returns of our trouting ex- 
ploits, we embarked with something of sorrow, but 
with naught in anger, from the cheerless locality. 



SUMMER WAYFARING. 67 

The forenoon vagrancy had been so fertile of sport, 
and so rich in the rarest loot of the stream, in fact, 
we were so satisfied with troiiting, that it was only a 
very promising or exceptionally tempting pool or 
place, that could prick the sides of our intent to any 
further piscatory trials. As many as we needed of 
the trout captured on the way we stored in the 
baskets, and the surplus was returned to the sti-eani 
for piscicultural purposes at any rate. We passed 
the Windfall with much felicitation, that there was 
no stress or predicament forcing us to harbor there 
again. We had the calm and glorj'^ of a golden 
sunset attending us when we rounded in, and struck 
the brink at Oamp Thebanlt again. 

As soon as we touched the shore, with ready com- 
motion of wings, the mosquitoes swarmed to greet 
us with a gory and rapacious welcome. There ap- 
peared an eager rivalry in each particular sucker of 
our veins to be first of the swarm to imprint on our 
faces a bloody and pitiless salute. The benign 
extract of olive and pine was l.berally spread over 
us, until like an oil of joy, it made the counte- 
nance to shine. The process was repeated. 

While Thebault was exercisino^ his ofticial func- 
tions of the kitchen, Bissell and Pratt had a mild 
attack of polite literature. The first gentleman was 
giving himself an insight into the high life of the last 
century through Timb's anecdotes. It was an open 
question as to Pratt, who was worrying himself 



68 TKOUTING ON THE BEULE. 

over a Wilkie Collins' novel, and witli a liost of 
mosquitoes, at tlie same time, which excited his 
most lively interest and attention — the plot and 
personages of the book, or the bloodj, biting fiends 
whirling and buzzing on the wing. High propped 
himself on a huge pine root, and in an exemplary 
mood of dutiful, regard for his promise and his wife, 
penciled in his diary. Of the firkin that contained 
our butter, possibly oleomargerine, I improvised 
an easy chair and made notes of the excursional 
history. The reading and the writing though were 
not satisfactory. The entire party, with prompt 
unanimity, was then, and at all times, most happy 
to swap a feast of reason for a feast of victuals. A 
diet of fish was the brain nutrition for which we 
waited. 



CHAPTER YI. 

BOILED TROUT — ADIEU TO THE BRULE — THE MICHIGAMI 
AGAIN — SHOWER AND TORRENTS — BADWATER HAMLET 
AND king's cabin — DEER-PENCING — OJIBBWA LITERA- 
TURE — A TROUT STREAM AND A TROUT'S IGNOBLE FATE 
— BADWATER LAKES — A DISTANT DEER. 

Without pork or lard the fry was done for. The 
next best thing, as a culinary expedient for serving 
trout, was broiling. We were now reduced to this. 
We had a patent broiler, heretofore unused. That 
utensil was now in demand. But when intended to 
be utilized it was found ridiculously unequal to the 
needs of the occasion. <* Broiling on an extended 
scale had not been contemplated, and only for a bit 
of occasional roasting to suit a momentary whim of 
taste, the device had been provided. But it had only 
a capacity of three trout at one toasting. Our 
forest-sharpened hunger was usually too keen and 
devouring to wait on courses of three fish for four 
men of robust and full-grown appetite. But 
(69) , 



70 TEouTma on the bkule. 

Kaquotasli luckily knew a thing or two about 
broiling a collective mess. lie extemporized a 
broiler from a slender alder branch, and splitting it 
and placing eight or ten of tlie fish between the 
splits, bound together with thongs of bark, he 
thrust the branch in the ground slanting over the 
coals. Thus a whole batch of trout was grilled at 
one and the same time, and broiled and crisped 
to a charm. When we saw how much the contri- 
vance of Indian wit eclipsed the Yankee patent 
invention, we indignantly hoisted the wire fraud and 
delusion into the middle of the Brule. 

By some insidious and mysterious means High 
had inveigled Thebault to boil a few trout and set 
them before us. The discovery of the boiled trout 
almost incited a riot in the camp. The folly of sub- 
jecting a brook trout to the hot and geyser-like bub- 
bling, 2120 Fahrenheit, to the utter washing out and 
annihilation of the delicate and subtle flavor, and 
reducing the fish to paste, and leaving it as insipid 
and tasteless as a boiled rag, was a culinary blunder 
and crime. It was an abomination that could only 
find its match in some of the fish dishes of the din- 
ner served up in the manner of the ancients in "Per- 
egrine Pickle." The peace was preserved, however, 
by pitching the sickish and viscous pulp into the 
river, though High himself was not heaved in 
with it. 

According to the custom of all trouters and 



SUMMER WAYFARING. 71 

saunterers on theBj'ule, we left memorials of our 
troiiting aud presence inscribed in names, words 
and figures, on a barked pine tree, to tell to all to 
whom such presents should come greeting, our storj 
of piscatorial exploits. Here our angling prac- 
tically ended. We had nothing to do but to commit 
our barks to the downward way, and take it easy. 
We landed for the portage around the falls, near 
the mouth, and halted at the camping ground long 
enough to add there, also, on a tree, the statistics of 
our fishing, and to recall reminiscences of our Alton 
friends. The rather formidable rapids just at the 
camp, now that we were familiar with the canoe 
and, with Indian skill and mastery, we had no 
hesitation in venturing to shoot, and enjoyed the 
excitement of bounding down through the tossing 
waters. 

When our fleet was embosomed on the broader 
and calmer sti-eam, the paddles sped it along smooth- 
ly and rapidly ahead of the swift current, giving to 
us all the luxury of delicious motion. We swept 
into the mouth of the Michigami and rounded to, 
at the point where the marvelous pickerel was 
brought in. A meagre lunch, the remains of our 
store of provisions, was served us on a bleached pine 
log, stranded there by some Michigami freshet. 
During the interval there I threw in a hook with a 
scrap of trout, to try for another phenomenal fish. 
But the call might as well have been for spirits 
from the vasty deep, as for bass or pickerel. 



72 TKOUTING ON THE BRULE. 

The Menominee river here really begins, and tlie 
scenery becomes striking and picturesque. The 
shores are partly hills and swells crowned with mag- 
nificence of foliage, in summer glory of luxuriance 
and green. 

The next objective point was Badwater and Tom 
King's cabin. Before we were far afloat, our seem- 
ingly inevitable and pitiless fate, dark clouds, gath- 
ered behind and portentously loomed towards us. 
The boys lustily swung the paddles, and the barks 
sprang and leaped to the strokes, cleaving the water 
like things of abounding life. But the clouds, like 
a rushing, bannered host, massed and marched rap- 
idl}^, gaining on us, and, at last, the lighter skirmish 
van overtaking us, we were moderately showered, 
and, in moistened plight, we hurried into the cover 
of the sheltering hospice. We were fortunate in 
making the refnge of Tom King's castle of pine just 
in time. The showering was a petty overture only 
to the rain-storm that followed it, and wdiich, as if 
all the windows of heaven had opened widest, poured 
in torrents. The clatter of the rain on the bark 
roof was dinning, but it was not unpleasing music. 

While the storm was wildly driving, two drenched 
and be-draggled Chippewa?, living across the river, 
the most abject and forlorn looking of redskin 
rao'amuffins, returned from a deer-fencing enter- 
prise, and, with a vociferous hullabaloo signalled 
for a canoe to c:oss them over. Fencing is an In- 



SUMMER WAYFARING. 73 

dican mode of deer hunting. A line of fallen trees 
and branches, making a rude cheval de /rise, is 
laid and arranged from east to west, between two 
points, sometimes several miles apart, at intervals 
of which the hunters are stationed. At the season 
when the deer travel south and come to the fence, 
instead of leaping or forcing through it, they face 
about and pace alongside, and passing the hidden 
Indian on his watch, are easily shot from the 
cover. This kind of ambuscading supplies most 
of the winter venison. Such killing seems more 
a massacre or butchery than sport. 

While we were drying our wet clothes, we took a 
survey of the cabin. There was a good deal of the 
white as well as of the red-man in the household. 
Most of the furniture was of the usual plain sort. 
In place of Axminster carpeting or drugget, there 
was an Indian many-colored, woven grass matting, 
laid on part of the floor, which was smooth, glist- 
ening neat pine. The bed-covers were a patch-work 
of the brightest and gaudiest colors. Parts of the 
walls were profusely and jumblingly pasted with 
Harper, Frank Leslie and other pictorial prints and 
cartoons, a maze of wood-cuts, the only embellish- 
ment or art pretension in the room. 

Tom had a library of sacred literature — the New 
Testament in English, which he could not read, and 
the New Testament in Ojibbwa (Chippewa) which 
he could read, but apparently did not. The aborig- 



74 TROUTING ON THE BRULE. 

inal evangel excited my curiosity. I took a slij at 
it, to see how the gospels ran in Chippewa vernacu- 
lar, and began the investigation in comparative 
philology, with the first verse, first chapter, of 
Matthew: '■'- M.esu oo otlan i Iteh-einatiziani-Mu- 
zinaugun au Jesus Christ itiu dahidum oouisum 
gaio inu Abrahanum.'^ The twenty-four lettered 
word, almost an alphabet, was too much for me as 
a totality. 1 tried it in sections and by install- 
ments, with no better result — it was a poser in 
orthoepy, and beyond my power to vocalize. 
Ojibbwa may be a pleasing dialect, but some of its 
parts of speech are rather lung-drawn-out, and the 
syllables, in many words, nin too far tandem to be 
conveniently rolled as sweet morsels of speech under 
the tongue. 

Tom handsomely played host to us. He was 
liberal of his plain civilities. He wanted us to feel 
we had the freedom of the house. His tawny 
spouse, in speech, was nothing, if not Chippewa, 
and had nothing to say to us, but performed her 
part in the etiquette of the occasion with a panto- 
mime of features quite as meaning of cordiality 
and welcome as if phrased in the formulas of 
the best society. She certainly won her way to our 
hearts and stomachs by the excellent supper set 
before us. The fried dried venison was a specially 
native dish that seemed to have a flavor and gami- 
ness and wildness racy of the wigwam and the for- 



SUMMKB WAYFARING. 75 

est. The sauce of raspberries, picked from near-bj 
bushes, and the sjrnp from the tap of iDaples on 
the hill, were so choice that by a mistake of appro- 
priation, or thoughtlessly, we quite overstepped the 
etiquette which constrains guests from emptying a 
host's dishes, and not enough of either was left to 
serve as a bare hint of what it was. 

As Tom King had not caught the parental usage 
of many civilized good families, of turning the 
children loose in the drawing-room to practice their 
hilarious infantile diversions and general boister- 
ousness for the entertainment and admiration of 
guests, the juvenile iraction or fractions of the house- 
hold were secluded, doubtless to temporary exile 
and silence in the kitchen corner. Tom and his 
helpmate, also, themselves occupied that small apart- 
ment for the night. They assigned to us the two 
beds, in what was chamber, dining and drawing- 
room, with their gay butterfly-like overspreads. 
These coverlets were light and as bright and gay as 
the dream of a tropical flower-garden. 

Early next morning, Tom saddled a horse, and set 
out for a trip to Dickey's, to procure supplies for 
our use — possibly, too, for his own. Our pine box 
pantry told a beggarly tale of emptiness. He had 
carte hlanche to bring us such commodities of sus- 
tenance as that limited market would afford. The 
whole day would be required for the accomplish- 
ment of his mission of food, and was before us for 
disposal. 



76 TKOUTING ON THE BRULE. 

AVitli a trout stream only two miles distant, of 
which we had most favorable hearsay, High was 
not the man to lazily dawdle away a good clear 
angling day in an Indian cabin. The chance of 
sport there was the more alluring from the fact that 
a pale-face angler was said never to have cast a line 
or his shadow in the petty stream. High thought, 
doubtless, it would very notably feather his caj) to 
be, of all civilized fly-anglers, the pioneer to the 
mysterious and occult water. In the glamour of 
his vision of the venture, Pratt, also, discerned a 
degree and eclat of novelty. Both, therefore, on 
the directions given by Tom, took the trail and the 
hazard of losing it, and themselves, too, in the 
woods. 

Bissell and myself rather preferred enjoying con- 
venient scener}^ and, with George and the canoe 
set out on an excursion to a panorama of the scenery 
of Badwater lakes. These sheets are a chain of 
irregularly shaped lakelets opening one into an- 
other — perhaps more than a half-dozen of them — 
said to be called Badwater from the reputed dark 
shade of the water. The portage to them is a half- 
mile, over a steep ridge, and starts from the river a 
mile below Tom King's place. Of course the ca- 
noe was indispensable, both to carry us on the river 
and to cruise us on the lakes. Fishing for bass 
and pickerel was to be merely an incident, not the 
purpose, of the excursion, an exploration of the lakes 



SUMMER WAYFAEING. 77 

and a view of the scenery beinc^ the mam intent. 

As George told us there would be a chance to sight 
a deer, Bissell took Pratt's artillery and munitions 
of war for the benefit of the contingent deer. It is 
questionable whether the gunner had a remote idea 
of killing the hypothetical stag, should one be 
obliging enough to appear, but the ambition to try 
was laudable and natural. We skirted, when afloat, 
round about, and crossed some of the lakes, when 
finally George, with his telescopic eye, descried a 
deer a half mile away, browsing the shore herbage. 
After a series of observations, Bissell got his eye on 
it, and was seized with the usual buck fever of the 
novice. The deer was not disposed to await closer 
familiarity, after its first windward sniff of the 
enemy, but forthwith took to its hoofs, leaving to 
the excited man-at arms but the poor satisfaction 
of no other than a very distant and perfectly harm- 
less shot. 

Our lunching place was a beautiful, smooth, high 
and shaded knoll, from which there was a fine view 
of curving shores and rich foliage in every direc- 
tion. Though not grand, the scenery was charm- 
ing and lovely — a picture for a landscape artist. The 
fate of the daily shower followed us here, but the 
sun appeared soon enough to dry us into comfort. 
The lakes are supposed to abound in bass and pick- 
erel. Bissell put out a trolling line, and I used the 
rod. My pork bait was a failure. But Bissell's 



78 TROrTIN(} ON THE BRULi. 

spoon was attractive eiiougli to allure three several 
bass to a miserable fate. George, too, let out 
a tarnished spoon on a length of line, and alter- 
nately paddled and fingered the trolling appliance, 
and had the fortune of captnring a greenish four- 
pound bass. 

The fishing was not an exciting amusement. The 
perfect calm of the water, the stillness of the air, 
and the repose of the whole scene w^ere so efi:*ectivc 
that we yielded to their drowse-like influence, and 
only gentlj and languidly glided in the canoe. A 
pair of loons, mournfully croaning, a duck, the deej', 
were the onl}^ living objects on or at these silent 
waters. On the return way to the cabin, and at 
some rapids near Tom's, we disembarked, left the 
canoe, and started to walk through the M'oods. 
Unex])ectedly, a covey of partridges started up from 
the ground, and Bissell fired a I'andom charge at the 
flock, but it was a wild shot. One of the birds 
perched on a near limb, and quietly watched Bis- 
sell re-loading, and apparently M-^aited for the shot. 
George and I stood by in expectation of a partridge 
for the pot. Bissell blazed away, and made the 
feathers fly — away with the tmvl to parts unknown. 

Bounding over the hill at Tom's, we were greeted 
with a roaring whoop-la from High and Pratt, who 
had just returned from the trout stream. Their 
vociferation was meant as a triumphal shout, as 
we knew presently, when they told their story of 



SUMMER WAYFARING. 79 

tlie day. Their exploits threw ours in the shade. 
The four bass of our party, the deer not shot and 
the partridge not l)agged, were not to be glorified 
in view of t'.e fifty-one handsome trout in their 
baskets, taken from the hidden nooks of the unfamed 
stream. It was a brooklet winding darkly under 
the shadows of tangled, interlacing forest growths, 
and so obscurely creeping or wriggling its way 
through the dense wood that it is not singular that 
it was reported to have been e\'er untouched of a 
white man's fly. 

In this tiny water-run, so hard to be reached and 
to be fished, and so unpromising of more than small 
fry, hut in a segment of natural meadow, in and 
out of which it wound, Pratt was fortnned with the 
most l)rilliant piscatorial co^ip of the trip; that is, a 
prize trout, more than a full pounder, tinged and 
speckled in the i-ichest emblazonry of his sjiecies. 
The peerless beauty was landed and unhooked, clean 
out in the meadow grass, but, as gamey in our ele- 
ment as in its own, struggled desperately, and in its 
c.spiring convulsion, ingloriously flopped plump 
into a mnskrat hole. 

That a paragon trout should be converted to the 
base uses of a musquash's meal was, indeed, a start- 
ling I'ontreteiwps^ and " if 'twere not to consider too 
curirtusly to consider so," in its small way, an in- 
stance of the cruel irony of fate, f»f a kind with that 
final ignominy of a hero dead and turned to clay 



80 TKOUTING ON THE BRULE. ' 

stopping a hole to keep the wind away. Indeed, 
there was a mixture of the hidicrous and pathetic 
in the ignoble fate of Pratt's splendid trout. But 
over the grievous mischance to the fish and to him- 
self, he kept a manful composure, and bore himself 
as one that could smile at grief, and possess his soul 
in patience against either the jests or the calamities 
of outrageous fortune. It was noted by ns all that, 
at the evening repast, his emotional nature had not 
so worked on his appetite as to impair his healthy 
capacity of getting away with his accustomed share 
of trout and all wholesome viands. 



CHAPTER VII. 

FIRST FROST — ADIEU TO BADWATER — TWIN FALLS— RED-FLY 
FISHING— A BUCK AND THE FEVER — A PLUNGE BATH — 
DEXTER's PARTY— BIG QUINISECK FALLS — SCENERY — LIT- 
TLE QUINISECK PALLS —KICKING A BUCKET— SAND RAPID 

A TRAIL — SHOOTING THE RAPIDS — STURGEON FARM AND 

STURGEON FALLS— BOBBING FOR PIKE. 

Tom King bad horticultural pretensions; and, 
we had seen, in his carefully weeded garden, vines 
of water-melons and cucumbers, and other garden 
stuiFs, in profusion of healthy flourishing. In the 
night, a rare August frost, a most premature 
spectral harbinger of winter, strayed from the lar 
north, and nipped and blighted by its touch the 
v/hole abundant plant. In the morning, a dense 
fog overhung the river and obscured the sun, but 
ere long the warm radiance dispelled the cloud of 
mist as if it were snow melted away magically. It 
was then an unclouded heaven and a dazzling sunny 
day, and these were hailed by us as signs of ended 
6 (81) 



82 TROUTING ON THE BRULE. 

rains, lowering clouds and cliilling moisture, and as 
propitious of the favoring skies and prospering 
airs wliicli would make the Menominee voyage a 
prolonged felicity and exhilaration. We had an- 
ticipated the descent of the river as the crowning 
delight of the trip. 

The squaw of the cabin breakfasted ns before 
starting. The trout of the meadow and wood, from 
their being the captives of a hap-hazard venture and 
surprise, and possibly because they were positively 
the last of the season to us, were specially i-elished. 
After the customary smoking and the loading of the 
bao^s^aore, and after Tom had srot an extended fur- 
lough, for a day or two lonj^er with us, from his 
better half, as neither he nor we were desirous of 
parting then, we launched away about nine o'clock. 
The river was unrippled, excepting at rapids; and 
just below those nearest the cabin, the other canoe 
was hauled from the dockage of leaves in which it 
was left the day previous, and the crews and the 
traps were divided between the two birches. 

We had by this time familiarized ourselves with 
the peculiarities and caprices of the birch-bark, and 
felt at home and at ease in it, so that it was no 
longer a precarious or ticklish navigation to us. We 
knew now how to shift positions, how to stretch 
out or to stand erect, and had mastered the niceties 
of balancing ourselves and the canoe. For its ease, 
grace, lightness, quickness and docility of motion. 



SUMMER WAYFARING. 83 

the bircli-bark canoe is peerless and superb among 
water-craft; and the Menominee we expected to 
find precisely the stream for canoe navigation, in 
its most favorable conditions. 

The Twin Falls are three miles apart, AVhile 
the Indians were transferring the canoes and their 
burden around the upper falls, we scrambled to the 
foot, and High ventured a cast of a brilliant red fly 
in the whirl, though it was quite improbable that a 
pike or a bass would be enticed by such a flaring 
gawd. ^Nevertheless, though all chances were 
against him, he whipped the water with the fly just 
the same, thinking if he did not win, he would at 
least deserve success. He saved his fly and restored 
the fictitious insect to the company of its fellow 
entomological gewgaws, in his fly-book, in its per- 
fect integrity, for future use. 

In the eddy of the lower fall, I thought the water 
looked as if it should be a lair of fish, and that a 
pickerel might be captured by one not too fastid- 
ious to try a killing bait, I rigged my tackle, 
and experimented with a scrap of pork on the hook, 
but the swine's flesh decoyed no perch, bass or pick- 
erel, that I could grapple with hook of steel. !Not 
even one of the abounding pitiful chubs was hungry 
enough to offer it a nibble, I was not long in satis- 
fying myself that fishing in that pool was not my 
vocation. After pushing out and getting fairly un- 
der way, George saw a couple of deer grazing 



84 TKOUTING ON THE BRULE. 

water herbage afar off. It was only a momentary 
vision. They vanished. 

Soon again we had another sensation of deer — 
a splendid buck feeding in the bushes. The boys 
slyly stole the canoes thereaway. Pratt's ardor was 
enkindled; he shouldered arms, and held at the 
ready; the buck lifted his spreading antlers, and 
then dropped his nose to the grass again. George 
was stealthily paddling the canoe, with a fair show 
of stealing unawares, within shooting range. We 
were expecting great things of Pratt, but owing, 
probably, to a fluster of buck-fever, he pulled an 
ill-timed trigger, and though the deer was not 
harmed, the water was badly torn up about mid- 
way between the buck's pasturing place and our- 
selves. The deer bounded and ricocheted into the 
forest, where the woodbine twines. Pratt admit- 
ted that his premature firing was a mistake, worse 
even than would be that of shooting at a pigeon 
and killing a crow; but as the deer was just going 
to spring, he had to spring the trigger then, or lose 
the shot. 

The next event, further down, was a frolic of 
immersion. We had turned ashore to lunch, and 
after dealing full justice to the spread, Bissell and 
Pratt were impetuously seized with a mania for a 
swim in the Menominee. The performance was 
marvelously brisk and brief They plunged in the 
crystal tide with a slaj)-dash precipitance, but the 



SUMMER WAYFARING. 85 

reduction of their temperature from the frigid in- 
clemency of the stream was so instantaneous and 
the effect was so glacial that with "chattering teeth 
and bristling hair upright," they rebounded, and 
plunged out, with surprising agility, Bissell rather in 
the lead. 

Two miles further on, was the head of the portage 
around Big Quiniseck Falls. It was the scene of a 
surprise party. At about the same moment Wirt 
Dexter's party and our own reached the spot. 
With him, were Jesse Spaulding, of Chicago, and a 
Mr. Smith, a Bostonian lawyer, en route to the 
Brule. Their suite and outfit were complete. 
They had four Indians of the Chippewa order of 
redmen, but they were lean, stunted-looking weak- 
lings and manikins, aside of our brawny and robust 
aborigines; also, a weazened, shrivelled little 
mulatto cook, who seemed a scullion apart, with no 
affinity for his fellows of the retinue, who, in their 
turn, seemed to look tomahawks at the kitchen 
satellite, and as if they would like to strip his 
scalp in the first convenient bushes. The cargo was 
immense. Tents, cots, hair mattresses, stools, 
cases, barrels, kegs, crockery, valises, gun-cases, 
as if for a whole season's campaign. Pratt thought 
their equipage for roughing it was hardly complete 
without a piano and brussels carpet. But he is 
rather peculiar and high-toned, and we did not 
accord with him in that hypothesis. The couple af 



86 TROtlTING ON THE BKULE. 

hours spent there, while both retinues were making 
portages of the loads, were a delightful episode in 
our forest adventure. Our converse was mainly on 
matters of the woods. Dexter has been a forest 
ranging Michigander, as apt in handling a trout-rod 
or rifle in his vacations, as he is in practice with 
the mysteries of Coke and Chitty in tei'm time. 
There is not much about game of his native State, 
that which swims, goes on foot or sweeps on the 
wing, with which he is not familiar. His reminis- 
cences of hunting and fishing, flavored as they were 
with the fragrance of Partagas, greatly entertained 
us. 

This portage was a little more than two miles in 
length. It was over a rolling, hillocky surface, and 
though the path was not so barricaded with trunks 
of trees to be climbed over as most of the carries, it 
was yet tedious and wearisome. But at the foot of 
the declivity, where the trail ends, a large rock towers 
thirty feet above the water at its base. From this 
peak of rock, a splendid view bursts upon the sight, 
in an outlook of magnificent scenery. Off", at the 
right, the river avalanches down a steep incline, 
and pitches tumultuously far, and rolls into waves, 
with clouds of spray, "showering wide sleet of 
diamond drift and pearly hail." The water spreads 
and rounds out into a circular bay or basin of nearly 
a half mile diameter, and this is partially girded 
round with clifiB wooded withheaviest pageantry of 



SUMMER WAYFARING. 87 

forest pines and cedars, except at the further side, 
where the river contracts and glides away in a 
smooth flow or stretch between level shores and the 
richest of verdure. 

The scene, resplendent in the setting sun, was 
enchanting and wortliy of some master to commem- 
orate. It was the spontaneous resolve of all the 
party, that the tent should be pitched' on the rock, 
in view of scenery so picturesque and striking; 
and there, from the summit of the rock, and in the 
last rays of the sun fading and in the twilight glim- 
mering on, we quietly enjoyed the situation with 
wonder and delight. We were among the splen- 
dors of primeval nature. 

When the moonshine softened the landscape, 
and portions of it were deepened into shadow, we 
had time to realize how cool our elevated position 
was. The blankets were not quite equal to the oc- 
casion, when we retired from the expiring camp-fire 
and betook ourselves to the sleeping ground-spread. 
After their camp duties had been performed, and 
tired, as they must have been, from the two port- 
ages required for the transfer of canoes and luggage, 
Tom and Thebault had launched and paddled 
away in a canoe for a night-hunt of deer. They 
skimmed along in the shadows of the woods, creep- 
ing softly among the reeds, and though they heard 
and saw that the deer were afoot, the moonlight 
was too bright to admit of successful ambuscading. 



88 TEOUTING ON THE BRULE. 

We rose early and willingly to renew our enjoy- 
ment of the charms of the scenery. Tliere was no 
satiety in the outlook around and bayond. When 
taking the canoes for the start, we paddled to the 
centre of the basin, and held up for a view from 
that point. Though not so grand as from the pin- 
nacle, the scene was yet lovely. We receded from 
it with lingering glances. Doubtless, when means 
of access are opened to it, Big Quiniseck Falls will 
become a resort of many who make summer pil- 
grimages in search of health, rest and river and for- 
est sporting. The stretch below the falls would 
be admirable for regattas and boating. 

Three or four miles down was the base of the 
elevation from which, on our way up, we had our 
iirst river perspective. The Dexter party had 
camped there, and its Indians gave our Indians in- 
formation that raspberries were to be found there. 
We went ashore to devastate the supposed raspberry 
bushes. But neither that berry nor its bush was 
discoverable on a pretty thorough exploration. 
The ascent up the steep path of sand to the plateau 
was compensated for in another view of the land- 
scape, there being on this river but very rarely high- 
browed hills, from which a commanding prospect 
may be had. In consonance with the loneliness, 
almost desolation, of the place, a raven croaked 
hoarsely its ill-omened notes from a dead tree-top. 
On the edge of the stream a bunch of deep crimson 



SUMMER WAYFARING. 89 

leaves hung from their stem, quivering gently in 
the breeze, and reflected in the water like a burst 
of brilliant wavering flame. 

While rounding in for the head, or trail at the 
head of Little Quiniseck Falls, Pratt fluttered 
again on espying a deer within easy range. The 
gun was ont of harm's way, nnder some baggage 
and safely encased in its cover, tied up with knots 
of which at first he forgot the combination. Pres- 
ently, though, the piece was uncovered, and then 
rummaging his pockets for caps, he, in his leisurely 
haste, managed to kick against a tin pail at his feet. 
This clatter of the tin struck an alarum at least 
half a mile all around, and, of course, the fright- 
ened browser leaped and clear :d from sight and shot. 
Pratt lost the deer, but he gained a valuable ex- 
perience, which satisfied him that hunting with the 
gun covered and uncapped, in the bottom of the 
boat, under a stratum of traps, was not promising 
of great spoil of deer or other game. 

While the portaging was being attended to, we 
descended the rocks on the lower side and clambered 
along the ledges to see the cascade. Its noise ap- 
prised us that there was more than a little confu- 
sion of the waters. On the brink a larsje mass of 
rock parted the stream, and the water plunged in 
separate headlong cataracts of snowy white. Tliese 
volumes rebound from the fall, as it w^ere, spout up 
in columns or jets and, falling, mingled together 



90 TROUTING ON THE BRULE. 

and rolled away in billows, with a mist of spray 

and the sun 

" Caught the sparkles, and in circles, 
Purple gauzes, golden hazes, liquid mazes, 
Flung the torrent rainbow round." 

These are grander cascades than that of Big 
Quiniseck, but the surrounding scenery, though 
wild, is not so grand. 

After embarking; and making a mile further, in 
the field of his vision, but far off, George discovered 
a couple more deer dabbling their noses in the 
water. But being as far-sighted as Kaquotash, they 
left no time for any strategy being practiced on them. 

The next noted stage of the voyage was the Sand 
Rapid. This is the Scylla and Charybdis ordeal of 
the river, on account of its danger and length. Tlie 
rapids area curving sweep of three miles, and test 
all the skill, courage and muscle of the most ex- 
perienced canoeist. The canoes could be taken 
through with the loads, but not with ourselves 
weiijhtins: them. There is a trail of two miles 
nearly, across to the foot of the Rapid. Before the 
descent of Sand Rapid begins there are short rapids 
around which a portage must be made. By our 
trailing over the short-cut, and by gaining so much 
start while the short carrj'^ was being made, Ave 
could reach the end of the Rapid considerably before 
the canoes would make the run through. 

The beginning of the trail was on a long ascent 



SUMMER WAYFARING. 91 

of a bill, and toward the end was a corresponding 
declivity, and then the course on the level was 
through marshes where it became obscure or lost in 
the grasses and brush. We groped our way out of 
the troublesome maze, and touched the river at the 
foot of the Rapid. It was a grassj bank, high and 
dry, and finely shaded by over-arching branches of 
splendid trees. We were to witness the shooting 
of rapids under the most exciting conditions, and, 
from that point, a mile of the agitated water could 
be seen. We waited for the canoes to come in sig-ht. 

In the meantime, Pratt and Bissell prospected 
among the bushes. High was resting against a 
colossal pine, on the shady side, confidentially giving 
himself away to his diary. I stretched on the grass, 
looking up to the dense evergreens overhead, grate- 
fully thinking benedictions on Wirt Dexter, for the 
rare cigar whose luscious odors of Cuba were then 
mingling with the abounding forest perfumes of 
Michigan. All the while, the turmoiled rapids 
sounded their ceaseless lulling monotone of liquid 
music. 

Soon Bissell roared out the whoop-la signal. We 
were instantly up, and on tip-toe for the scene. 
Away at the further end of the perspective, the 
canoes bounded into sight. George and Thebault 
manned the larger, and Tom, alone, swayed his old 
familiar smaller one. The birches feemed things 
of life that leaped and came pitching ahead, the 



92 TROUTING ON THE BRULE. 

Indians swinging the paddle from side to side or ply- 
ing the setting poles as needful to sheer otf from a 
rock, or to hold them from rushing into a breaker, or 
to turn them into the winding chutes, and keep them 
always steady and trim from dipping or shipping 
water. 

Alone, erect, in the middle of his canoe, his hat 
off and his dark hair streaming, handling the 
paddle, at times dropping it and snatching the set- 
ting pole, with the celerity of thought, holding her 
to his will, running her in the swift descent where 
he would, steady through a waste of seething perils, 
long reaching, but most swiftly shot through, 
when the slightest deviation from the right course 
would dash the frail structure to pieces or swamp 
her instantly, Tom was a marvel of handling, 
nerve and skill. 

We watched them breathlessly, through the long 
stretching ordeal, seeming though, in the swift- 
ness of advance, but a few moments of passage. 
Wlien they safely ran in the barks to shore, with as 
masterly a control as that of a trained jockey reining 
in and bringing to bay his fiery-mettled horse, our 
admiration was boundless, and we greeted the dar- 
ing and successful runners of the water with the 
loudest of huzzas. 

The next stoppage was at Sturgeon farm, at Stur- 
geon river. That stream is the route to Hamilton 
lake. It is in a region noted as a stamping ground 



SUMMER WAYFARING. 93 

for deer. For several years Chicago parties have 
encamped there, and found food for powder among 
the '• poor dappled fools of the forest," and enjoyed 
the abounding sport, until ammunition was all shot 
away, or they wearied of the excess and gore of 
deer. The hunting places seemed to have been re- 
garded as a sort of private and exclusive rifle range 
or game preserve for their own special sport. Lake 
Hamilton is, practically, to the general public, nearly 
as little known as the Yictoria i^yanza of Central 
Africa. 

Our supplies, procured from Dickey's, had been 
limited, and we found it prudent to meet the con- 
tingency of short commons, or of possible delays in 
the voyage, to increase them. So, at tlie farm, we 
had negotiations with the supply department. From 
its abundant store we laid in plenteous tea, pork, 
syrup, flour, potatoes, butter and tobacco. 

To a forest mxenu to which these would contribute, 
there was one delicacy needed to make it sumptu- 
ous. Our teeth were bv this time set on edge for 
that dainty fare by frequent previous cervine eva- 
nescences. We had seen that game ne.ir and afar; 
had shot at it hopefully within one range and hope- 
lessly at another distance, and, sometimes, had not 
shot at all, but always the deer played us the slip. 
These escapes, so nearly fruitions, served to tease 
and tantalize appetite to importunate longing. AVe 
were pledged antlers and haunches, if we could pro- 



94 TROUTING ON THE BRULE. 

vide a dark lantern for a niglit hunt. This require- 
ment we were fortunate in supplying at Sturgeon 
farm. We borrowed a lantern well approved for 
the purpose. 

Making a portage around, the tents were pitched 
just below Sturgeon Falls, in the last glow of sun- 
set on the water. There is Indian hearsay that 
pike abound in the basin here. As that fish is pe- 
culiarlj' voracious, it was thought there was a prob- 
able field for lively amusement in the twilight. 
High encouraged a trial, and captured a colossal 
grasshopper, for which it is known the pike has a 
special greed; and the fine one now his prisoner 
was, certainly, a most lusty and tempting specimen 
of that skipping family. I impaled it on my 
hook. I felt sure of one pike at least. It was a 
hard scuffle to reach a certain throwing point — a 
narrow ledge on a scarp of rock — and there was a 
preliminary tribulation of undergrowth and briars 
to be gone through; but I worked a way to the 
perch. I wagered with myself large imaginary 
stakes that I would take a notable pike, and rather 
expected my comrades were waiting to applaud the 
feat to the echo. 

There was no reason why pike were not numer- 
ous there, and why they should not suffer themselves 
to be caught. In that trust, I plunged in the 
enticing grasshopper. But the fish were too unac- 
countably wary and shy to make a rush for the hook. 



SUMMER WAYFARING. 95 

I placed and replaced the bait in every direction. The 
reputed voracity showed no sign. I began to donbt 
whether ravenousness was indeed a vice of tlie 
species. At any rate, the myth of grasshopper 
killingness was now exploded. "Would a shred of 
pork rally the clan? A fragment of Sturgeon farm 
bacon was tried. But, if that had been tainted 
with trichina spiralis, it could not have been more 
cautiously shunned. The nutritious grasshopper 
and the unctuous pork proved equally fallacious. 

I was at my wits end, and further, was convinced 
that even the existence there of pike was a hallu- 
cination, and thought in future I would treat all In- 
dian tradition with contempt. Feeling myself a 
victim of misplaced confidence, I swore off from 
even the bare imagination of pike forever, scram- 
bled perilously from off the rock, and scathingly 
through the briar hedge and alder thicket, back to 
the camp. 

How mercilessly I might have been bantered and 
twitted on my egregious water-haul, I was luckily 
unaware, from the fact that, just then, attention 
was diverted in another direction. Across the 
basin, in the chiar-oscnro of the deepening twilight, 
was a figure of a deer shadowly outlined. Greorge 
slipped a canoe silently across, to try a shot, and 
everybody held his peace and watched for the result. 
But noiselessly though the birch-bark thitherward 
stole its course, the deer was too vigilant to be sur- 
prised, and it vanished into the eveninij shades. 



CHAPTER VIII. 

NIGHT HUNT — VENISON — SPLENDID ANTLERS — TOM KTNg's 
PARTING — A LOOK FOR A DEER — A PAWN SLAIN — COM- 
PUNCTION— PEEMBINWUN RAPIDS AND RUNNING THEM — 
A MARCH ST0LEN--BISSELL'S BUCK-HORNS — HOME LONflING 
— WHITE RAPIDS — ANOTHER PARTING — A BROOKLET TROUT- 
ED IN — PIKE RIVER — INDIAN MAIDEN — WAUSAUKA 
BEND — high's devoirs TO THE GENTLE SEX — MOSQUITOES 

The Indians intended doing their part towards 
verifying the promise of deer. They organized a 
hintern hunt, and expected, before the moon arose, 
or was high, to accomplish the mission. They 
trimmed the wick, rubbed up the gun, fresh loaded 
and capped it, and parleyed briefly but earnestly, in 
their native tongue, and in their air and actions 
evinced a serious purpose of business. They now 
had the lantern, whose use they had declared was 
an almost certain gage of success, and their own 
credit was pledged, from the start down the river, 
to diet us with venison on the trip. They now 
(96) 



SUMMER WAYFARING. 97 

meant to make good tlieir promise, and assnred ns 
that from deer resorts in the vicinage, tliey "would 
return to the camp with at least one carcass. • 

George, with the gun and lantern, and Thebanlt, 
with the paddle, slipped the canoe quietly down 
the river in the dark. Tom King crept under the 
other upturned canoe in front of the fire, and curled 
up for slumber, and quickly slipped into happy hunt- 
ing grounds in the realm of sleep and dreams. We 
prated and speculated on the results. The querj^ 
whether Diogenes, on his lantern hunt, ever found 
his man, which sometimes used to be a school-boy 
quiz, was never a quirk or conceit as interesting and 
speculative to men of our stomach, as was now the 
conundrum wliether Kaquotash's lantern would 
prove a means of success. 

A deer was the necessary complement of our 
wants. It omitted, all the voyage, thence to the 
end, would be bound in shallows and in miseries. 
Before we were asleep the report of the gxiA in the 
distance told us a hopeful tale. Another shot fol- 
lowed in a brief interval. We were content, then, 
to wrap our blanket covering around us and lie down 
for the night, with our last waking thoughts of 
venison, and with assurance of a morning reality 
of deer. 

At sunrise, while the shadows of sleep were yet 
on us, the boys rounded in the canoe, and roused us 
with a cheering loud wlioop-la. We quickly opened 
7 



98 TEOUTING ON THE BRULE. 

our eyes, lurned out, and hailed the natives with 
acclamations, as we saw the carcass of a fat-haiinched 
doe stretched on the grass. The stripping of the 
hide, and the dissection necessary for packing away 
and for the present cooking fire, were processes that 
nimble fingers and a keen knife soon accomplished. 
The breakfast was a princely banquet to us. 

While Thebanlt was cleaning the platters, all at 
once he signaled us with a finger pointing across 
the basin. There, in plain view, was a magnificent 
buck, with lordly horns, pasturing in the grass, 
raising his head gracefully to look around, and 
dropping it again to the herbage. The sight was 
one to move even an old hunter's blood. Tom and 
George instantly launched and stepped in a canoe, 
crouched down and noiselessly sped it to and behind 
a petty wooded island which was enough a cover 
to mask their movement. Tom landed, and, cat-like, 
crept stealthily to a good position, and within easy 
shooting distance, where the "fat burgher of the 
woods " still stood feeding. Tom poised himself 
and the gun. We stood motionless, waiting the 
shot, and heard Tom snap both caps — the gun missed 
fire! The click, of course, startled the buck, and, 
with a lofty spring, and in a great agitation of 
bushes, and with an erected tail, he bounded -into 
the distance. Even Indian passivity gave way, and 
both George and Tom uttered a cry of disappoint- 
ment. Both pronounced him a noble fellow, and 



STJMMEE WAYFAKING. 99 

Tom's liigliest praise of him was that his horns 
would weigh thirty pounds. 

This incident was Tom King's last in our service. 
He left us here to return home afoot. In tlie woods, 
on the stream, in the camp and in his own cabin, 
he had been faithful, pleasant and valuable. There 
was not a little of the white man's ways, mingled 
with a good deal of the red man's, in him. He is 
ready, like most of his race, to lend a hand at any 
casual thing that he may find, but is mostly a trap- 
per. He makes Marquette the trading place for 
his pelts, and makes journeys there in winter on the 
ice and snow of the Michigami river. The parting 
hand we gave him was warm with the friendliest 
adieu. 'No one of us will soon forget the Menomi- 
neg, Tom King, of Badwater. 

The first shot of the night hunt we heard, was at 
a deer on the river bank. The Indians thought the 
animal was disabled, if not killed, and would proba- 
bly be found in the woods. The deer brought in 
was shot on the edge of a small lake. The boys re- 
mained there, sleeping in the canoe. After leaving 
the camp, on our way down, a landing was made for a 
search at the place where the deer of the night be- 
fore was thought to have been shot. The brush, 
thickets of bushes and trunks of fallen timber, were 
so nearly impenetrable, to us, at least, that it seemed 
a mystery how even an unwounded buck could get 
his crown of antlers, and himself throuo-h the com- 
pact wilderness. 



100 TROUTING ON THE BRULE. 

This density of undergrowth and debris of timber 
are found everywhere, but for all that, the flying 
deer vanishes with unaccountable certainty and 
speed. The Indians had trouble to move about, but 
scoured the fastnesses all around. We struck on a 
profusion of red raspberries, near the bank, and 
vigorously raided the bushes while the search for the 
suppositional deer was going on. The Indians 
must have befooled themselves, after all, as they 
found no trace of the deer, wounded or dead. Pratt 
and myself, with George, went on in the advance. 

Pratt's time at last came to witch us with a feat 
of marksmanship. A doe and her twin fawns were 
pacing down a partially cleared bank ahead, not 
seeing ns. Around a bend we stole a quick, close 
turn and surprise on them as they were lapping«the 
water in the edge of the stream. Before the}' could 
top the steep bank, for which they sprang, the gun 
was ready, just then,with fatal accuracy,and shattered 
the hind leg of one of the fawns, when it fell back 
and reeled into a shallow pool formed by a tongue of 
sand, and helplessly struggled in the water. George 
leaped ashore and grappled it. Pratt stepped out 
and towards it. The woeful creature turned its 
head to Pratt, looking him in the face, and bleated 
piteously, as if imploring him to help or spare it. 
George dispatched it with a merciful thrust of a 
knife in its throat. 

The crying, quivering fawn, crimsoning the sand, 



SUMMER WAYFARING. 101 

was a spectacle recalling the similar one of the 

wounded deer in the forest of Arden: 

" The wretched animal heaved forth such groans 
That their discharge did stretch his leathern coat 
Almost to bursting; and his big round tears 
Coursed one another down his innocent nose 
In piteous chase." 

Pratt, like the melancholy Jaqiies, was disposed 
to sigh over the sobbing creature; the spectacle so 
touched his tender and sympathetic nature that, in a 
mood of compassion and compunction, he solemnly 
vowed himself against any future merely sportive 
or needless slaughter of the innocents. 

We passed all along through the finest and love- 
liest river and forest scenery. The stream was broad 
and smooth, and a delicious air tempered the radi- 
ance of the sun, so that gliding in easy and gentle 
motion over the water, with the senses all in repose- 
ful harmony, was like the. calm and soft lapsing into 
sleep. At a little cleft in the solid wall of verdure 
was a solitary white man lying on the ground with 
a rifle pitched against a tree, just at hand, on a 
lonely watch for deer. The place was a deer cross- 
ing, a runaway or path to the water, to which they 
repair for swimming over. Many of them are fre- 
quently ambushed in this way, during the season, 
when they are migrating. 

Not far below him was an Indian encampment, 
or bark cabin, where venison for winter was being 
smoked, and deerskins were drying in the sun. A 



102 TROUTING ON THE BEULE. 

graded infant school of papooses seemed to have 
been turned out to play when we passed, while 
a couple of curs j^elped at us an unfriendly clamor. 
At noon we reached Peembinwun rapids. They 
were an ugly and hazardous rush and tumult of 
waters. The canoes were brought to; the Indians 
got out and took a survey, and held an earnest and 
considerate pow-wow. They thought they might 
venture to run the canoes through, if partially 
lightened of the load of ourselves and what bag- 
gage we could carry around. 

Each of us gripped our blankets and valises and, 
in not very light marching order, tiled along the 
portage. The lighter canoe went safely through 
the turmoil. But the ordeal was more doubtful and 
perilous for the larger and more loaded birch-bark, 
as both skill and danger were involved in the head- 
long passage. We were eager to witness the home- 
stretch of the exciting run. Our point of view was 
the brow of a little cliff overlooking the scene. "VVe 
saw the craft let loose, and sweeping on among 
the tossing breakers, guided by incredibly quick 
changes of the paddle, or by sheering with the pole, 
and shooting madly ahead, and swiftly, like a weav- 
er's shuttle, all through, but in safety, into the 
calm waters below. We huzzaed the boys with a 
win. 

It was only a short time after leaving that place, 
that an inconsiderate deer was seen nibbling grass 



SUMMER WAYFAEING. 103 

in the water's edge. As it was a sliort-horned bnclc, 
and Pratt's vow of compassionate forbearance only 
applied to fawns, it was no act of periidj to him- 
self to shoot the heedless quadruped then before him, 
if he could. He, therefore, mobilized his forces for 
the occasion. The deer must have been as deaf as 
a post, or the victim of some inscrutable delusion or 
optical infirmity, else George could not have sneaked 
a direct march to within forty yards distance from it. 
As it stood with its whole broadside fully exposed, 
in point blank range, a conspicuous target, Pratt 
himself must have been egregiously wild and ran- 
dom in his gunnery, not to have smitten the deer 
with a hail of buckshot. So,, in fact, he did effect- 
ually pepper and perforate its leathern coat, so that 
the deer dropped wounded into the water, where it 
struggled desperately to regain its feet. 

George ran the canoe to it, sprang out, and with 
a cut-throat jab of his knife, ended its respiratory 
functions forever. The readiness with which the 
Indians flayed off the skin, was suggestive of the 
neatness and dispatch of the scalp-stripping pro- 
cess for which the untamed savage has a natui al 
devilish proclivity and historic repute. Ahauncli 
was carved off for venison steaks, and the rest of 
the carcass was left there to feast the minks and 
crows of the woods. 

Pratt had now fairly won his spurs as a deer- 
slayer, and being once more a little scru2:)ulous 



104 TROUTING ON THE BRULE. 

about needless blood shedding, was ready to band 
over the armament and munitions to Bissell, who 
was more than willing to undertake the gory busi- 
ness. He was not much of a field sportsman, and 
had yet to realize his first flurry of buck-fever. He 
wanted to try his hand. To shoot one deer only 
would be glory and fame enough for him. 

Bissell Lad very wisely forethought that, in case 
of failure to hack a pair of horns from the bleeding 
front of a buck of his own slaying, as a souvenir of 
the woods to be taken home to excite the admira- 
tion of his friends, it might be well to take the hint 
from a frequent trick of luckless fishers who come 
home laden with messes caught in the fish market 
with a price. So he had provided at Dickey's a 
jolly front of antlers, which had long hung season- 
ing among the cobwebs of the cabin rafters, and 
sent it by Evanson's team to Marinette for express- 
age to Chicago. 

A rage to kill just one deer is not uncommon 
with verdant men-at-arms. There is a story of one 
of these irrepressible fellows, who was one of Burton 
C. Cook's party making a tour of the woods. He 
carried his rifle constantly on tlie qui vive for the 
imminent deer. The solitary one that materialized 
on the entire round of the trip, as if by the wind of 
fortune blown to mortal doom in the apparent jaws 
of destruction, cantered without scath, and close 
past the very clump of bushes where Verdant Yen- 



SUMMER WAYFARING. 105 

ator, just then disariped, liad lain down on the 
grass to snooze. 

By this time Pratt and Bissell were affected with 
premonitorj symptoms of home-fever, by reason of 
supposed exigencies of business. Though tliey 
loved our gentle, dreamy and tardy voyaging not 
less, they favored home-tending rapid momentum 
more. High and I were still untired of the woods 
and the stream, and would fain prolong the canoe- 
ing and tenting to the extent of the most leisurely 
and tardy return. By the camp fire at night we sat 
in sober council over the matter, and puffed a great 
deal of smoke during the session, but we neither 
befogged their wits with the smoke, nor was our logic 
potent enough to convince tliem that we understood 
the demands of their business better than them- 
selves, or to change what had become a foregone 
conclusion. 

Home being the word, the next thing was to ar- 
range the details, as to a division of the flotilla, 
of supplies and of Indian service. As there was 
no peremptory spirit or any positive ultimatum on 
eitlier side, a result was speedily reached. Early 
in the morning the camp was in motion, and the 
matin repast soon prepared and dispatched. To 
give our parting comrades a good send-off, we em- 
barked at the same time to consort them as far as 
White Rapids, 

There, in the smaller canoe, and with George as 



106 TEOUTING ON THE BEDLE. 

swinger of the paddle, Bissell and Pratt stowed them- 
selves and their belongings, Bissell ligiirativelv 
said that there was not a dry eye in the'party. There 
were no visible ocular effects, but we all felt some 
flutter of the heart, some twitching of the lips and 
some swell in the throat, when the good-b^^e was 
spoken and the parting hand in hand was clasped. 
It was a parting we could well have spared. We' 
sat on the bank watching them. As they receded, 
they waved us with their white cambrics one last 
adieu, and then another, until they vanished in the 
far-down offing. 

White Rapids, so called from a reach of shallow, 
white-capped rapids, is a settlement of a Chippewa 
populace, and of a half dozen cabins, with small 
natural meadows on both shores, greenly bordering 
the frothy and brawling turbulence of the river. 
Excepting New York farm, this meadowy and dis- 
forested acreage was more typical, apparently, of 
Christianity, civilization and agriculture, than any- 
thing yet seen along the Menominee. 

A half mile back, there is an infinitesimal brook, 
spirally lengthening through a patch of meadow, 
and running into an impenetral)le wood. Paltry 
as it is, there is a current Indian tradition of its 
being a trout stream. High thinks wherever there 
flows such a brook or rill, he must have a throw 
there, and to pass by a streamlet with trout in it, 
even were they but minnows of trout, without mak- 



SUMMER WAYFARING. 107 

ing its acquaintance, even briefly, would be a dere- 
liction for whicb he could not easily forgive himself. 

Thebault led the way to the petty stream. It 
looked as if it would be fronting under difficulties 
to experiment in it with the fly. The grasses al- 
most smothered it; osiers and brandies overhung it, 
and there was an interlock, often, of brush on the 
bottom and through it, and it was all one could do 
to cast a line anywhere. At the hazard of utterly 
demoralizing his rod, and of his eyes being 
scratched out, or of his clothes being slit into rags, 
High pushed in wherever he could thrust his nose 
through the hindrances, and seemed to enjoy the 
vexations of such angling. However, he so effi- 
ciently wielded the rod, that in not much more than 
an hour's worrying in the thickets he had whisked 
out nineteen handsome trout. 

I thought that in this wayside or chance diver- 
sion he evinced greatly more of the higher skill 
and qualities of an expert troutsman than he did 
in the canoe fishing on the Brule, where the elbow- 
room was free and the throwing clear. These trout, 
it is true, put on the scales, would not tell a large 
figure in a total of pounds, but I fancied High was 
rather proud of this achievement, and that in the 
way, if not of weight, yet of patience, art and skill, 
these nineteen trifles made enough of a wonder 
of exploit to show Thebault and myself how ang- 
ling thus was to " strive with things impossible, 



108 TROUTING ON THE BKULE. 

yea, get the better of them," as in fact it seemed 
to be. 

Pike river comes in not far below Wliite Rapids. 
An Indian cabin stands there. We thought we 
could there hear news of Stockton's party, and so 
turned ashore to interview the natives of the. habi- 
tation. We all of us started up the path leading 
to it. A ferocious, long-haired, large dog was lying 
in front of the door, in the sun, snapping wickedly 
at flies or fleas. Thebault, as dragoman, took the 
lead, we following, with our eyes carefully fixed on 
the dog, which, however, was so exclusively devoted 
to his petty tormentors that he scarcely noticed 
us. We entered the domicile. The inmates were 
female, except possibly a swaddled papoose, cling- 
ing, affrighted, around the maternal neck. After 
once starting, their squaw gift of speech was quite 
equal in fluency and copiousness to that of the most 
gifted of their Christian sisters. 

Our inquiry as to the Stockton party was satis- 
fied in learning that it had passed the day before 
into Pike river in good plight. But the ^con versation 
took, evidently, a wider scope, and our interpreter 
probably was doing the agreeable on his own ac- 
count. One of the gentle savages was girlish, and 
quite comely in the face, with raven dark hair, "like 
the sweep of a swift wing in vision," though the 
rather bulbous figure and ponderous size, and afoot 
that would "bend a blade of grass or shake the 



SUMMER WAYFAEIXG. 109 

downv blow-ball from his stalk," were not types 
of feminine grace or models of art. But, withal, 
this belle of the lodge or wigwam would not be im- 
attractive, even beyond the pale of Indian paganism, 

A picture of more grace than the Indian maiden 
was a beautiful fawn standing on the bank at Wau- 
sauka bend, calmly looking us in the face. The- 
bault tried to scare it by motioning and shouting, 
but it only trotted off a few paces and faced us 
again, as if lost or confused. The spotted innocent 
was entirely out of harm's way from us, as the gun 
that the " round haunches gor'd " was then on a 
forced march to Marinette. 

As we turned the bend at Wausauka, we swept 
into the prospect of a fine large spreading meadow 
or sward, and a little on, in the river edge of the land- 
scape were two white tents with a covered wagon, 
some grazing horses and a good deal of a day's 
washing hung out to dry. These were signs of civ- 
ilization. "We bore down at once for the camp. 
Our coming appeared to have brought out of the 
tents three or four women and children, on a sur- 
prise and with a curiosity equal to our own. 

To us, this appearance of ladies in that out-of-the- 
way place was like a happy vision burst on us out 
of the heavens. We were ready to echo Jafiier's 
fervid tribute to woman, or at least, to recall it, 
that angels are painted fair to look like her; she 1ms 
in her all we believe of heaven; and we had been 



110 TROUTING ON THE BRULE. 

brutes without her. Under the inspiration of this 
or a similar chivah'ons sentiment, High thought it 
his duty, regarding, for the moment, these ladies as 
personating, or typifying, the sex in general, to offer 
them his homage. 

The gallant chevalier stepped ashore for that pur- 
pose. He was mindful enough of the difference 
between woman in the abstract and in the particu- 
lar to move a little further and out of the way to 
make up to the fairest one of the sirens. Knowing 
very well the sensibility of the sex to the charms of 
scenery, he attempted to steal a march into her good 
graces through this weak point by the delicate topo- 
graphical observation, conveyed in the blandest man- 
ner: " This is a beautiful camping place, madam." 
There was nothing extravagant or far-fetched in 
that remark, and the deportment of High was ad- 
mirable. 

Whether the lady felt that it was the crowning 
glory of a true woman to be the admiration and hap- 
piness of one rather than the toast, or the cynosure 
of any " vagroni men" that might come roving 
along there in canoes, without letters of intro- 
duction or testimonials of character; or, whether 
the offense was in addressing her as madame and 
not mademoiselle, she, at all events, received and 
responded to High's winning amenities of speech 
and manner with a giggle and snicker of derision, 
and majestically strode b.'.ck into tlie tent. So did 



SUMMER WAYFARING. Hi 

her sisters and her cousins and her annts. This 
ended the dejiortment business, shattered the Jat^ 
tier ideal into smithers, and settled Hifrh. He 
retired in as good order as he could, considerino- 
the sudden demoralization, and asked me if I could 
see anything in that remark to laugh at. He did 
not think I could, and, I owned, 1 could not. 

The only suggestion I could offer him for the 
unaccountable disdain of the lady he had picked 
out as the particular one angels were painted fair 
to look like, was that the apparel of our party gen- 
erally, and of some of it in particular, was in a 
condition of seediness and decrepitude that may 
have marked us in her mind as tramps or fellows 
no better than we should be. We learned that the 
ladies were of a party from Menominee, encampino- 
there, the gentlemen of which were then out hunt^ 
inof. 



CHAPTER IX. 

SANTTAKT MATTERS— DAVrs' PAIN-KILLER — THE RELAY HOUSE 
At.AIN — FARLIN's PARTY — LYING IN THE SHADE — UPPER 
TWIN ISLAND— LAST CAMP AND ITS DISCOMFORTS — THE 
LOWER MENOMINEE — AT MENOMINEE — END OF THE TRIP. 

The river turns on itself at Wansauka, forming 
a long promontory three miles around, by canoe, but 
across its base, by portage, only a few rods. We 
preferred the three miles of ease and languor on the 
water-way to a short portage, and when we had 
made the run, we landed and crowned the top of 
the steep bank with our camp and tent for the 
night. • This was on one of the borders of the open 
or clearing of Wausauka, and commanded a fine 
view of it and of the river. 

We found we had placed ourselves at the mercy 
of the most ravenous mosquitoes of the whole trip. 
The comparatively moderate skirmish line that at- 
tended our landing was reinforced, from time to 
time, by swarms from a distance, until we were be- 
(112) 



SUMMER WAYFAKING. 113 

clouded with the biting legions. We smudged our 
faces and hands with oil and tar, and repeating this 
was a principal branch of the business carried on 
at niofht in the tent. 

So far we had had a clean bill of health, and the 
sanitary condition had been superb. But at Wau- 
sauka promontory camp. High fancied he was out 
of sorts. The entire stock of medicines at com- 
mand consisted of one vial of Davis' pain-killer, 
and one vial of aperient powders, so of course the 
choice of remedies was limited. He thought the 
pain-killer would "yank" him about right. I 
thought it did. A few drops of it in warm water 
told the story. If its internal effects were to be 
judged from the puckering of the mouth and wry- 
ness of face, his true inwardness must have been in 
a state of lively commotion. Its effect, however, 
was happy, and restored High to his customary hy- 
jrienic condition and cheerfulness. 

We were sped onwards gently and steadily by 
Thebault, counting the hours, not that they came 
too slowly, but that they were, one by one, bringing 
us nearer to the end of the voyage. When we came 
to the Relay House landing, near the hut of the 
priest-hunter, we moved, oi* rather drew out on the 
bank our canoe, and tramped the half-mile way to 
the Relay House. We had, the day before, seen a 
fleet of four canoes being poled up the river, and 
learned now that Farlin's party had passed there, by 



114 TROUTING ON THE BRULE. 

team, on the route we liad taken, to Sturgeon farm, 
to go into camp at Hamilton Lake. This j)arty was 
a nimrod party more than a trout-rod party, and 
was to devote itself much more to using bullets 
than to recreation with the fly. 

The Relay House was quite empty and silent. 
Its few inmates were off in the fields, and its appear- 
ance was very different from that of the rainy even- 
ing our party housed there. Even the logman's 
hut was left by the clergyman to its solitude, and 
the scene was little like that of our night at the lios- 
telry. Two miles below we hauled to f )r lunch, at a 
grassy bank, though the shade was meagre. 

As all the hurry and home-fever passed off with 
Pratt and Bissell, we had time enough on our 
hands, and were trying to take our ease for the 
remainder of the short trip. We found shade 
enough for a siesta; the breeze was lively, wav- 
ing the grasses and foliage into woodland music 
and rougliing tlie stream into silver wavelets. 
We readily enough dropped into slumber, and 
only roused when the signal of the lunch was 
given. We awoke from a siesta or any sleep that 
reached to a meal hour, by a sort of self-acting im- 
pulse, like that of an alarm clock set to strike at 
an alloted hour, when a repast was set out. For- 
esters and campers train themselves to, or acquire, 
this sort of automatic waking up to answer de- 
mands of the stomach. 



SUMMER WAYFARING. 115 

After the refreshing doze and the hmcli, and on the 
voj^age being again resumed, we had the almost daily 
pillar of cloud following in the wake, which shaded 
us from the sun at first, but, in its thickening' and 
darkening, ominously prognosticated a heavy rain. 
We were just enough ahead of the masses of cloud, 
to reach a point eligible, but, at all events, neces- 
sary for setting the tent in a field or clearing oppo- 
site the end of Upper Twin Island. The rain did 
us the service and favor of holding off until the 
tent was stretched and pegged down, and very soon 
after the showers fell copiously for a time; and, in 
an interval, partly of entire cessation and partly 
of subsiding into a sprinkle, the cooking fire was 
kept barel}?^ alive long enough to afford us the 
customary draught of tea and some other of the 
staples, for supper. 

We had not more than finished our evening refec- 
tion wlien the rain began pouring in torrents, leak- 
ing through the tent, and running in from one side 
in little rills at our feet. Thebault scoured the ad- 
jacency, where was an Indian cabin, to hunt timber 
or pieces of wood to support or prop up the blan- 
ket quarters out of a puddle. He confiscated 
some clapboards from somewhere, and by laying 
them on the ground we improvised a water-proof 
bedstead for the final sleep in the woods. 

To add to the misery and discomfort of the situ- 
ation, the mosquitoes of all the country — at least 



116 TROCTING ON THE BRULE. 

of more than one township — seraed to swarm in 
for shelter from the rain. They were rapacious, 
and thirsted for nothing less than all the blood of 
all the party. The air was close, damp and sultry, 
and all these, with the constant flashing of light- 
ning and frequent peals of thunder, far into the 
night, made our tent anything hut a pavilion of 
ease, rest and deep sleep. We were only sixteen 
miles from Marinette. "We had heard the six 
o'clock steam-whistle of the mills there. That 
sound was the knell or signal of our ending life in 
the tent and in the woods. The memories of the 
last camp were disagreeable ones. Kain, heat, thun- 
der, lightning, mosquitoes, sleeplessness, in aggra- 
vating combination, served to make it almost a 
night of horrors. The scenery of the river and all 
the charm of navigating it end at Twin Islands. 
From thence to the mouth was a monotony of bar- 
renness and almost waste, the timber having been 
long since stripped off. 

We reached Menominee at noon. The vacation 
ramble ended there; canoeing on the streams and 
tenting in the forests, our open air life, were to be, 
thence, only memories; but with us, memories 
always golden and abiding! 



CHAPTER X. 

SECOND BRULE EXCURSION — NEW ROUTE — ARTHUR T. JONES 
— NEW GUIDES — PREVIOUS ARRANGEMENTS — W. H. STEN- 
NETT — REPUBLIC — THE MICHIGAMI — UNEASY LYING — 
STORES — CIRCULATING LIBRARY — TWO KISSES — A BEAR 
AHEAD — TROUTING AND CHUBS — TALKING SHOP — A METEO- 
ROLOGICAL-LEGAL CONTROVERSY — THE EARLY RISER — 
BROOKS — A STATUESQUE GROUP — BUCK-FEVER — A NIGHT- 
HUNT — FIRST BLOOD — HUZZA FOR DENISON. 

In August, 1877, a second Brule river excursion 
was arranged. The members of it were High, Pratt, 
the writer, and Franklin Denison, also a Chicago 
lawyer. A route different from that traced in the 
previous pages was chosen. This was to afford 
novelty, greater variety of scenery and a traverse 
of further and wider regions. The railway connec- 
tions were the Chicago & l^orthwestern through 
Marinette to l^egaunee, thence the Marquette, 
Houghton & Ontonagon Railway to Hudson, and 
thence a short branch to Pepublic, on the Micha- 
gami river, where are the great iron mines of that 
name. 

(117) 



118 THOUTING ON THE BEULE. 

The canoes of the previous voyage, the Dickey 
and Tom King, had been laid by at Marinette, in 
the care of Arthur T. Jones, tlie freight and ticket 
agent of the Korth- Western Railway at that place, 
and as a sort of pledge committed to his guardian- 
ship, had been carefully and safely kept in all their 
integrity, ready on call for immediate service. This 
gentleman is himself an expert and devotee both of • 
rod and gun, and is, as well as W. H. Stennett, the 
General Passenger Ao-ent of the Chicao^o & l^orth- 
Western Railway, at Chicago, a cyclopedia of infor- 
mation on all matters relating to sport, either hunt- 
ing or fishing, and the routes leading to the regions 
of sport in Wisconsin and upper Michigan, so many 
of which are traversed or reached, from Chicago, by 
the Korth- Western Railway and its connections, 
and, also, relating to the necessary equipment and 
the means of supplying it. Like other cyclopedias, 
these gentlemen are free and liberal of their infor- 
mation to all who may choose to consult them. 

To Mr. Jones' kindly and accommodating civil- 
ity, and to his intelligent foresight in our behalf, 
we were much and gratefully indebted for the suc- 
cess and pleasure which, it will be seen, attended 
our excursion. Particularly by his judicious action, 
in pre-concert with us, W' e were provided, in advance, 
with a splendid retinue of guides. These were, the 
reader's acquaintance of the previous jDages, Mitch- 
ell Thebault, David Kaqnotash, a younger brother 



SUMMER WxVYFAEING. 119 

of the George Kaquotash of tlie former Brale party, 
and a vetei-aii in woodcraft, Paul Thebault, brother 
of Mitchell Thebault, and Joe Dixon, the two latter 
half-breeds. We knew from Mr. Jones that these, 
our new acquaintances, were trusty, willing and 
hearty in such service, and that they were exper- 
ienced in woods and life in the woods, from having 
traversed our intended route, as well as other direc- 
tions in the wilderness, with parties prospecting 
timber lands, or with locators or surveyors of land, 
or with parties, like our own, in pursuit of vacation 
sport and recreation. In the robust and athletic 
frames of these auxiliaries we could, at a glance, 
foresee all the muscle and endurance requisite for 
the service for which they were engaged. The 
canoes, with David in charge, had been forwarded 
by Mr. Jones to Kepublic a day in advance. The 
other three guides joined us at Marinette. 

On the 8th of August, 1877, the party and its 
outfit reached Republic, and first touched the Michi- 
ganii river. 

Around tlie hill, a mile below the village, on the 
brink of the river, was the first encampment. The 
water- works for supplying the mines, with the rum- 
bling machinery, was close at hand. The situation 
was not delightful. The dull, leaden sky made it 
look, and the damp air made it feel, much less than 
pleasing. The temperature reminded us of a Chi- 



120 TEOUTING ON THE BEULE. 

cago November, but nothing at all of August dog- 
days. 

Even under tliese inauspicious conditions, Pratt 
was almost buoyant, and Denison well-nigh irre- 
pressible. In fact, both of them thought they might 
prelude a little to get their hands in, one with the 
rod and one yviih the gun. The prospect for game or 
fish at that point was wholly unpromising. Pratt, 
with his fly-rod, struck an attitude on the bank, 
and presently snatched out an ignoble chub. This 
instantly chilled his ardor, and he promptly betook 
himself to camp for some other more satisfying re- 
source. Denison, equipped with his fire-arms, 
ranged about in search of anythingon foot or wing, 
and worked his way to the east of us, among the bush- 
es. He did not wholly waste his time or ammunition. 
He put a solitary partridge to death and blowed a 
chatterinjf kino-fisher to its kinmiom come. Hiffh 
and myself tediously busied ourselves in doing 
nothino;. 

Our first night encampment was not delightful 
or soothing. The air was very damp and chilling, 
and we shivered as it swept freely and moistly 
about us. When we had retired, sleep was won 
only after long and toilsome jjursuit. Sleepers 
on hair mattresses, feather pillows and in chambers, 
could not, all at once, fall into the different somnif- 
erous conditions of a blanket bed, with boots or 
satchel for bolster, terra firma for bedstead, and 



SUMMEE WAYI'AEING. 121 

an airy tent for dormitory. Cf course, a discipline of 
restlessness was a natural preliminary to our first 
sleep. One of the party referred to a vulgar calumny 
of many of the unregenerate, that lawyers find lying 
on any or either side no trouble at all, and observed 
that he had been lying on one side, and then lying on 
the other side, most of the night, and the lying was 
anything but easy, and certainly was not his forte. 
Probably this was meant as a joke, but at all events 
it was received as fact and in silence. 

Another of the party, in a reflective mood before 
sleep, could discern from what seemed unpropi- 
tious signs, only an unpromising outlook ahead. 
Much of the glowing native hue of the resolution 
with which he set out on the expedition, had con- 
siderably sicklied over with a pale and cheerless 
cast of thought. He sang small and in the pen - 
itential strain of a miserere. However, with the 
dawn of morning and the lifting of the dense fog, 
which in the night thickly encompassed us, and in 
the glowing sunshine, the situation and prospect 
changed their seeming, and the perspective of the 
mind's eye brightened into harmony with the radi- 
ance of the sky. 

The night's experience taught me that additional 
blanketing was essential. My Chicago blankets 
were too light. Fortunately the Iron Company's 
store had a stock of these goods of all qualities. I 
made my way to the village and procured a pair, 



122 TKOUTING ON THE BEULE. 

heavy with the fleeces of many sheep, and suitable 
foi' regions more Arctic than these. High, who was 
to be my fellow of the couch, seeing the comfort 
lying in their folds, welcomed their arrival in the 
tent with a smile of benignity. They would con- 
tribute to the warmth of feeling between us. 

The forenoon was spent bj' the Indians in over- 
hauling; the canoes which had not swam the water 
for a year, and there were seams to be pegged up 
and leaks to be pitched. They handled the craft 
delicately, in fact lovingly, as if they were things 
of life endeared to them. We took account of stock, 
of the collective outfit, of our eight pairs of blankets, 
which, when spread, were to be slept on, and when 
rolled into bundles would be sat on, of our two pon- 
chos, of our valises, of our tackle. There were 
Denison's gun-case and his caisson, in which his 
fixed ammunition and deadly missiles were carried. 

The contents of the baskets and valises were 
curiously miscellaneous. In the way of hygienic 
precaution there was a whole pocket pharmacy of 
homo3opathic tincts, pills and powders. Pratt was 
our professor of the theory and practice of medicine, 
and actual medical adviser and dispenser. For mi- 
asmatic localities there was Kentucky old crow, 
some sour mash for probable malarial effects, and,_ 
as a general tonic, or catholicon, to be used as an 
extraordinary remedy (consult High's " Extraordin- 
ary Eemedies,") there was Hennesey Cognac (1865). 



SUMMER WAYFARING. 123 

By exercise of a liberal foresii^lit, abundant fare 
was i3rovided to feed the mind and meet anj reason- 
able intellectual avidity of the party. In fact there 
was a circulating library in the valises. The cata- 
logue included three or four of Jules Verne's inven- 
tions, Lakeside edition, ten cents, "Joshua Haggard's 
Daughter," " Weavers and Weft," " Christie John- 
son," "Two Destinies," "Heaps of Money," "The 
American Senator," and a few other brown-tint, 
paper-covered novelistic obscurities. It will be per- 
ceived that this was the very lightest intellectual 
marchino; basra'age. 

Supposing for myself that the merest nut- shell, as 
it were, of literature, would be enough for the mental 
sustentation of trouters and canoeists, and as a re- 
source for a rainy day, I had brought Walton's 
" Complete Angler " as my own sole reading. It 
was chosen from a principle or sense of congriiity. 
Its theme accorded with our programme, which 
was piscatorial, and it would seem that the readino- 
for the occasion should relate to the aim and spirit 
of the occasion. For instance, Denison's speciality 
being that of hunting more than of angling, I 
fancied his literary researches would relate to the 
natural history of the regions to be traversed, or to 
the science of gunning and projectiles. But his 
bookish humoi* was not for subjects of gunpowder 
or zoology. 

1 had my opinion of Denison when I saw the sen- 



124: TROUTING ON THE BRULE. 

tiniental gunner stretch out lan2;uidly on his blanket 
spread, and fall a-sighing over Hawley Smart's love 
tale of " Two Kisses." The title-page motto of that 
romance of tender affection, " Methinks no wrong 
it were if I should steal from those two melting 
rubies, one poor kiss," settled it as to the insidious 
and inflammatory tenor of that story of lips and love, 
and for what his literary mouth watered. It was 
rather a wonder that he, an off-shoot of Plymouth 
rock and a scion of a devout Puritan ancestry, 
should rapturize over a perilous romance, whose 
very front legend or key-note was an incentive and 
lure to kissing kleptomania. 

There was a rumor of a great bear ranging the 
country down the river. This bruin would be 
notable food for any man's powder, and test any 
sportsman's grit and mettle. Thinking forearming 
should follow forewarning, Denison ransacked his 
caisson for the right cartridges, carefully wiped and 
oiled his gun, and whetted his belt-knife to an extra 
savao-e edo^e. lie seemed to challenge a mortal en- 
counter, and to look the defiance " bring on your 
bears, now!" 

There was nothing we were more willing to part 
withal than with our water- works encampment. 
At two o'clock the flotilla was ready to cast ofi", and 
turning our backs on the forbidding scene, we soon 
glided on the current of the Michigami into the 
wilderness. Denison and Pratt, with the arraa- 



SUMMER WAYFAEING. 125 

raent, were in tlie advance canoe whicli David pad- 
dled. We follovred in its wake, and in short time 
saw our consort vessel rounding towards an expanse 
of high grass in a bordering swamp. Before we 
discovered the cause of turning shoreward, the shot 
gun and David's rifle were simultaneously dis- 
charged, and we saw a doe leap out of the grass 
and dash off in confusion, and presently spring in 
the air again, but finally disappear in the reedy jun- 
gle. A search was made for the wounded animal, but 
it had limped or dragged itself beyond reach. Only 
four miles furtlier on was seen another deer brows- 
ing in the reeds, and two shots were aimed at and 
wounded it, for it was seen to stagger for a moment 
bewildered or stunned, but on exploration by the 
Indians, only some stains of blood, but not the 
bleeding deer itself, were found. 

We then advanced a long stretch of smooth watei', 
in a very solitude of calm. Pratt's piscatory in- 
stinct was incited on reaching a tiny brooklet that 
quietly found way into the river, and though it is 
generally supposed that the Michigami is not a trout 
stream at all, to Pratt's eye favorable conditions for 
trouting were not wanting. So the canoe was laid 
in at the brook's mouth for him to try a cast. Al- 
most at the touch of his fly on the water there was 
a rise, and Pratt had the credit of taking the first 
and precursory trout. High's eye glistened. Den- 
ison disarmed. Their rods were quickly put in or- 



126 TKOrTING ON THE BRULE. 

der. All of them rapidly cist in their hacldes, 
and the tront jumped lively for a half-hour. 
During this time, thirty of them were brought to 
grief. 

By general consent the trout simnltaneonsTy sub- 
sided, and gave way to the exasperating chubs, 
which began just as soon to betray their imperti- 
nent voracity. The rods were promptly disjointed, 
and speedy departure followed. Denison was so 
disofusted at the onset of the chubs, that the first 
one which tackled his fly was flung high and far on 
the road to Jericho, in the woods, by the pitiless 
vigor of his backward swing. 

A few rods on we turned ashore, to camp. "While 
the tent was being set, I threw in a bass-line with a 
chub on the hook. A two-pound perch happened 
to be swimming around on the lookout for an eve- 
ning meal, and just in the mood and at the instant 
for a greedy dash at the tempting bait. The perch 
was captured and landed. That satisfied my yearn- 
ing for sport. The encampment was high and at a 
bend. The river is tortuous, and turning bends 
was so common that Denison had a lively business 
on his hands in keeping trace of the points and 
courses with his pocket compass. 

Our supper was a banquet of trout. These be- 
ing the first of our catch, and rather a surprise, im- 
parted, perhaps, a keener relish to the dish. In the 
after-supper lounge and idling, Denison again. 



SUMMER WAYFARING. 127 

silentlj and apart, meditated on tlie tlieme of the 
kiss and melting rubj lips, and pursued the tender 
storj of the lovers in the novel. Should Ilawley 
Smart weave other amorous tales of osculation, 
Frank is hardly the man to suffer any of his favor- 
ite hand-books of the law, such as " Daniell's 
Chancery Practice," to absorb him from the enjoy- 
ment of such affecting memoirs. 

High and Pratt entertained themselves and me 
by fishing over again their previous years' angling on 
the Megalloway, Parmachene Lake and in tlie wilds 
of northern Maine, and in the smoke of our log-heap 
fire azurely wavering above us, recalled the memories 
of Whipple's roaring camp-fire's on that trip. "When 
the twilight deepened obscurity over the pages, and 
he lost sight of the lovers in the shadows, Denison 
laid away his book, and found vent for his inappeas- 
able vitality in practising gunnery. He delivered 
a random volley at a bat that wheeled about in cir- 
cles round us, in the waning light, and then also 
scattered a canister charge at a fearless mnskrat 
that was cutting triangular ripples across the stream. 

AVhen we were retired to the tent, it was formally 
and solemnly agreed that no one should introduce 
or talk shop, under penalty of a ducking. This 
was partly because three of us learned gentlemen 
were too many for Pratt, who was not learned, and 
who, though knowing little about lands, tenements 
and hereditaments, except the rents and profits 



128 TKOUTING ON TUE BRULE. 

thereof, was not familiar with the legal mysteries 
relating to them, as expounded in Coke or Cruises' 
Digest, and beause we ought not to worry him and 
ourselves with the vain subtleties and quiddities of 
the law, and because on anj^ question started we 
could never agree, and there were sui'e to be three 
different opinions. 

Later in the evening, the party thought I rather 
transirressed the rule. I referred to a curious case in 
Iowa, where a meteorlite fell on a granger's land. 
A dispute about this worthless product of the upper 
regions was about as meritorious and profitable, one 
would think, as the suit about the shadow of the 
donkey which Demosthenes related to the gap- 
ing mob of Athens. But still the subtlety and 
learning of some of the pundits of the profession 
were sharply exercised on the question whether it 
belonged, by law, to the finder, by right of dis- 
covery, or to the owner of the land, as an accession. 
This reference was imputed to me as a misdemeanor 
plainly within the interdict of shop. I protested 
that it was a meteorological rather than a legal mat- 
ter. But the preposterous wiseacres solemnly gave 
judgment against me. But they, Denison dis- 
setitiente, graciously suspended the execution of 
the sentence of ducking, at least until we should 
reach warmer water below. 

The Republic blankets made High and me bless 
our stars for the thoughtful prescience which had 



SUMMER WAYFARING. 129 

added tliem to our sleeping kit. They "were needed. 
The air at night was frost-like, and after High got 
np and grabbed out a protruding root over which 
he had been sometime unrestfullj turning, as on a 
pivot, and after the others in their blankets moder- 
ated their snoring, we fell into our first slumbering 
in the woods, and it was peaceful and deep. 

Pratt was our morning harbinger, and peep o' 
day boy. He liked to see what envious streaks did 
lace the severing clouds in yonder east, and the 
jocund day stand tiptoe on the misty mountain, 
hill or tree tops, or whatever height, as Romeo saw 
them. Whether the eyelids of the morn, cr of 
Pratt were first opened, was always an open question. 
The Indians, even, lagged in their snore after h'b 
rose — not long, though, for he soon roused and 
bestirred them to diligence around the wood-heap 
kitchen range, that breakfast might come soon apace. 
While the cooking was being attended to, he and 
Denison navigated themselves to the little stream 
where the trout were found, to try again 

" The fond credulity 
Of silly fish, which, worldling-like, still look 
Upon the bait, but never on the hook." 

They returned with the inglorious trophy of one 
trout apiece. 

We broke camp about nine o'clock. A porcupine, 
looking like, and as still as, a bump on a log, was 
seen sprawled out on a half sunken and fallen tree 
9 



130 TKOUTING ON THE BRULE. 

in tlie water. Denison leveled dead at it, and 
wounded it. We drew np, and Thebault despatched 
it with his paddle, after its making fight. A mile 
or two below, we trailed around rapids which were 
passable by the canoes only when lightened. We 
almost lost the trail, and jogged ahead slowly, 
over logs, through bushes and branches, a longish, 
weary route. We had our rods and baskets, for the 
Indians said there were trout below. 

At the s'ujDposed trouting place, tlie lines were 
whipped in with vigor, and with fervor of anticipa- 
tion. The brush and timber in the water were ob- 
structions to prosperous sport. High and Pratt 
tottered or scrambled out on uncertain and yield- 
ing logs, and made random casts, but with no cheei*- 
ing results, except that Pratt was enlivened by the 
surprising capture of a splendid one-pounder, seem- 
ingly the solitary trout of the pool. But the chubs 
snuffed us as from afar, and came shortly, a collective 
voracity, to vex our patience, and, after viciously 
jerking out a few as monitory examples to the spe- 
cies, the anglers decamped in conspicuous dudgeon. 

Awaiting the canoes and the portage of tlie car- 
goes, we lounged on the brink. My compeers 
yielded to the seductive biblomania and industri- 
ously yawned over their novels and lost themselves 
in the mazes of the plots. Unequal and not inclined 
to similar mental dissipation, I was content with the 
thoughtless idleness of smoking and w^atching the 



SUMMER WAYFARING. 131 

wliiifs dissolving around me, or the ripples gently 
lifting and silvering on the stream. When we were 
again embarked and not long under way, the much- 
seeing Kaquotash distinguished a deer in a scarcely 
visible clump of bushes, and advanced the canoe 
more briskly thereaway. But he could get no nearer 
than within lono: rifle range, and the bullet sent 
from his trusty piece only served to speed the deer 
riishingly off into the dense timber. 

We came, then, to an almost inappreciable brook 
weakly filtering, as it were, drop by drop, from 
some neighboring spring, into the river. It is only 
where the cold thrills of the springs are imparted 
by these veins of water to the main stream, that 
haunts of Michigami trout can be found or expected. 
Pratt had his eye on this tiny outlet, and was the- 
first to cast as we rounded to. He had the luck of 
starting some lively rises for a time, but not the 
equal fortune of capturing. He brought in only 
three or four. Each one that he lost seemed to him 
lustier than the last, and, of course, his complacency 
became more jangled and correspondingly out of 
tune. 

About six o'clock, on reaching a bend, a splendid 
sight surprised, and at the same time, hushed 
us into the silence of admiration and caution. 
Straight ahead were the stately forms of a couple 
of bucks, one of grand size, with a lordly foli- 
age of antlers towering up; his consort buck, 



132 TKOUTING ON THE BRLTLE. 

also, not meagerly branclied witli horns, and with 
them a beautiful doe. They were in full view front- 
ing us, grouped together in mid-stream, a won- 
drous picture of majesty and gracefulness, worthy 
to be sculptured into enduring marble, as they stood. 
The larger buck seemed fixed in a pose of pride, 
as if contemplating his own massive proportions in 
the mirror of the stream. He and his fellow then 
dropped their fronts to the water, and gracefully 
arched them np again; threw them back erect, and 
tossed oflF the water that showered like spray, and 
again repeated the dip, and appeared as if about, 
another time, to plunge their antlers, when the big- 
horned buck slowly turned his head, as if first to 
scent any impending or possible danger. 

In the meantime our Indians instinctively 
crouched low, like tigers for a spring, and motioned 
us to perfect quiet, though we already were spon- 
taneously and breathlessly still. The forward canoe 
crept on stealthily and slowly, with strokes of the 
paddles which expert Indian woodsmen and canoe- 
ists only have the knack of making noiseless. Our 
canoe was silently moving in the wake of the for- 
ward one, our eyes fixed, as by a spell, we scarcely 
respiring, for fear a breath even would dispel the 
charm of the scene. 

*' Ah! what a pity were it to disperse, 
Or to disturb so fair a spectacle, 
And yet a breath can do it." 



SUMMER WAYFARING. 



133 



It really was a scene too rare and fine to last 
longer than for momentary view. 

Before the advance vessel could move the shooters 
into effective range, we were sighted and scented, 
and quick like thought, the group broke up; the 
bucks and doe and the triggers all went together, 
and, with head thrown back, the deer plunged and 
dashed, in a foam of the water, to the shore, and 
receded like a flash into the thick covert of bushes, 
" lost to sight, but to memory, deer." For a few 
seconds we were still under the trance, and then 
nearly all, simultaneously, broke out in a loud whoop 
of relief. Our boys, George and Paul, twitted and 
chaffed the forward Indians for the luckless fiasco 
of their marksmanship and strategy. Denison was 
sadly crest-fallen over the event. 

Afterwards, in the camp, it was remarked that 
Denison did not, with his rueful countenance, look 
like the same man, to which another of the party 
twinklingly responded, the deer, though, were the 
same deer, David's rifle fired no better than Deni- 
son's shot-gun. The range was long, and it was no 
fault of either that he was forced to fire afar. Except 
in rounding a bend, and surprising one, it is not easy 
to get a dead shot at a deer. Even in a near drawing 
on him, and more especially when the range is dis- 
tant, the greater or less oscillation and motion of the 
canoe is likely to waver or swerve the line of sight, 
and make the shooting something unsure and wild. 



134 TROUTING ON THE BEULE. 

Kaquotash betrayed earnest meditation in his 
face, as if pondering how yet to show us something 
in the way of deer-slaying. He steered us for 
encamping to a high bank with dense pines over- 
hanging, and to this particular place, because there 
was a known deer haunt in the vicinity. He pur- 
posed making a night hunt with the lantern to 
redeem himself and retrieve the mischance of the 
afternoon. And such was Denison's humor too. 
His blood was up, and his rage for deer was now 
inappeasable. In the kindled fervor of the two, 
we had a sure forecast of venison. 

After the cups and platters of supper were dis- 
posed of, and tl;e night set in, the gunners held a 
divan on the grass, and arranged the strategy of a 
dark hunt. Denison tacked the lantern on his hat 
so that when the slide was moved its glare would 
shoot out far in the abyss of darkness, like that of 
a light-house sio-nal. With Dixon and Thebault 
to man the canoe, he vanished into the distance and 
the night up the river. Kaquotash and Paul footed 
it, through the shadows of the pines, to a neigh- 
boring pond or lakelet. High, Pratt and I, in 
musing meditation fancy free, the while, lay on 
the blankets, wistfully, and principally watching 
the flare of the bfazes of the camp fire, or the 
smoke of our meerschaums wreathing visible fra- 
grances around us. Our own voices were the only 
sounds that broke the dead silence of the night. 



SUMMER WAYFARING. 135 

We waited not long. The report of tlie gun 
was heard, and, speedily, Denison followed it to 
camp, and laid before ns the trophy of a slain doe. 
We hailed him with congratulatory paeans. Pratt 
was enongh elated to vow, and give formal notice, 
that in honor of the event, he would next morning 
decorate himself in the gala costume of anew shirt 
collar. Denison quite modestly bore his blushing- 
honors, considering that he never before shed deer's 
blood, and though not bearing himself with any 
particular air of flushing or vaunting, he was nota- 
bly complacent in manner, as if, now, amends were 
made for his flash in the pan shortly before, and 
as if we were now bound to rate his gunning at its 
real worth. David was less fortunate. He wearily 
and patiently scouted the margins of the pond, 
and laid in wait, and noiselessly slipped the canoe 
from point to point, but no sign of a deer was 
heard or seen, and he was obliged to return with 
his redemptory purpose left for future achieve- 
ment. 

Frank's venison, when served on the breakfast 
log, M^as not a tender viand; but as it was the first 
of the kind, we proposed making an honest m.eal 
of it. I noticed it was not, however, until the sec- 
ond liberal course had gone the round of the platters, 
that any one ventured absolutely to afiirra that the 
venison was rather touo-h. We thought it would 
be ungracious to Denison, and it would seemingly 



136 TEOUTING ON THE BRULE. 

be to misprize the excellence of the meat and de- 
tract from the lustre of his achievement for us to be 
critical about the cohesive quality of the flesh. So 
we smacked our lips on it as a delicacy and declared 
the repast a feast. 



CHAPTER XI. 

TOCATIOTT OP ARMS AND REVOLVER SHOOTING — TRflNG FOR 
TROUT — DRIFT-PILE — TROUT DINNER— A PORCUPINE AND 
PORCUPINES — MARBLE — A CARNIVAL OF MINKS — PART- 
RIDGES — PLOPPERS — A WINDFALL — UPPER MICIIIG AMI 
FALLS — MOISTURE — LITERATURE. 

We recognized Denison's vocation as one of arms. 
His revolver and gun and ammiinition-box were his' 
playthings. He apparently thought the best ser- 
vice of his cold steel was its being kept hot by use. 
Loadino; and firing; were his favorite diversions. 
Popping gun or pistol was a necessity, and if no 
living thing offered itself to his marksmanship, a 
bump or spot on a tree served for target practice. 
A chunk was floating past, and he challenged me to 
revolver practice with him. I pulled away at the 
chunk. I claimed that the ball had perforated 
its centre, as there was no splash of the water. 
But he and the others, as his corroborative wit- 
nesses, with one voice, declared I had missed even 
(137) 



138 TEOUTING ON THE BEULE. 

the river and shot into the sandbank beyond. As 
the verdict was against me I was at least silenced, 
if not satisfied. 

When we were again on the way, Pratt discov- 
ered a brooklet putting in. In the cool water of 
its confluence with the river, he knew there were 
the conditions of a resort for trout. So the canoes 
were paddled to the mouth of the brook and halted. 
He switched in his fly, and whipped a nest of trout 
into most animated commotion for a brief while. 
He took in a few of the leapers, but just at once 
the whole shoal of trout must have abruptly emi- 
grated, in a panic, to safer parts, for not another 
rise was to be had. 

No sooner had we swung off and were under way, 
than David's eye discerned a deer ahead; but, 
though cautiously dropping the canoe toward it, 
the deer took the alarm and went flying, so the shot 
aimed at it whizzed a harmless errand. So, too, af- 
ter a mile of further paddling, we came within view 
of a buck nibbling his morning herbage. He stop- 
ped not on the order of leaving his unfinished 
feeding, and Denison's buckshot effected nothing 
but to speed him to a masterly retreat into the 
woods. 

We came to a gorge of drift-wood, which looked 
like the debris of a forest chaotically jammed fast; 
it was about a quarter of a mile of piled-up heaps 
and jaggedness, so solidly wedged and massed that 



SUMMER WAYFARING. 1^9 



the floods conld not move it. We trailed over the 
carry, and the boys shouldered the canoes and car- 
goes around. Below this, a handsome, but incau- 
tious doe, stepped into the brink to ford the river. 
She caught sight of us in time, and as our appear- 
ance wa'^ not^at all pleasing to her, quicker than a 
whirligig, she turned tail on us and went a fast 
vanishing form of white. 

Under the verdure of arching firs and cedars, the 
dinner was served. There was a carpeting of faded 
brown layers of fallen twigs, as soft to the footfall, 
as a vesture of sponge or a velvet of nature's own 
weaving. The ground was clear of bushes and 
thicketr The spread of our eidslne was not various, 
but it was, to us, eminently sufficient, as much so as 
if it had been prepared according to Soyer, or, as 
if it were an inspiration of Brillat-Savarin. We 
needed none of the sauces or condiments of gastro- 
nomic art to sharpen appetite, or to lend to eating 
a zest, and to tea-drinking a flavor unknown t(> 
gourmets and pampered epicures. The catching of 
a trout or plumping of a buck, when one, himself, 
brings in the fins or the horns, or is a witness to 
the taking off, greatly enhances the relish of the 
fish or the flesh on the dish. 

The Koman table connoiseurs were wont to have 
the intended fishes of their dinners brought living 
before them, just on the eve of their being put to 
pot, that the eaters might, in the courses quickly 



140 TEOUTING ON THE BRULE. 

following, have the sense of freshness to tickle their 
piscivorous appetites. The stoic Seneca, a sturdy 
moralist, has severely noted and censured this dainti- 
ness of the prandial epicures. Whoever has seen the 
water dripping from the trout as they are taken, then 
seen them prepared for the pan, touched by the fire 
into a rich browny crisp, and served at table, all 
nearly as an entire and inseparable process, knows 
the diiference in lusciousness, flavor and delicacy 
between the trout of a dinner he has eaten at Chi- 
cago, and the trout of a dinner al Jresco on the 
brink of their native Michigami. Such trout meals 
on the river, are something of the luxurious, to be 
remembered. 

On the afternoon down way we stopped to cast at 
the mouth of a stream, but a few rises seemed to ex- 
haust the local sport. All along the water where 
there were sloughs, grass patches or swamps, fresh 
deer tracks were innumerably imprinted. At the 
mouth of Fence river, which sluggishly came in, 
nearly hidden in a luxuriance of grass, the sands at 
the margin were trampled into mire by the count- 
less hoofs of the herds that frequent there. A 
coup^.e of porcupines wei^e airing themselves on a 
driftwood log, and immovably stared us in the face. 
But Denison with his unerring revolver and at short 
range went by, and they will fret their lives never- 
more. The charges scattered many of their quills 
on the water. 



SUMMER WAYFARING. 



141 



On starting ont next morning, Denison and I 
took the forward canoe. At a brook that ran in 
over a rocky bed, the other canoe was held np and 
lagged for trouting. We moved on ahead, and saw 
another phenomenally large porcnpine snnffing the 
open morning air, and his prickles glistening in 
the sun. We bore down on him at close quarters. 
I offered him the compliments of a revolver salute, 
and Denison tendered him the liberal civilities of 
three shots. These amenities were lost on him. 
With his quills fretfully bristling out, he scrambled 
off, unharmed, up the log to his retreat. 

Further on, David ran us in at a white marble 
ledge on the bank. He landed himself and knocked 
off specimen fragments for us. He told us that off 
from the river, there was a hill of fine white mar- 
ble. Possibly, some day, blocks quarried there may 
be reared into palaces or sculptured into monu- 
mental effigies. But as we had no thought of erect- 
ing palatial edifices in the metropolis, Chicago, and 
still less of providing for ourselves grave-yard 
shafts in the necropolis, Graceland or Oakwood, Da- 
vid's samples and information therefore failed to 
warm us into a mineralogical fervor. 

But though this geological formation was of no 
interest to us, a zoological display which we wit- 
nessed was a jocund, though an exceedingly fleet- 
ing, entertainment. It was a hilarious rabble of 
minks, frisking and capering festively on the sand, 



142 TKOUTING ON THE BKULE. 

squealing a merry chorus, and in the very heighth 
of frolic as we, unbidden and unwelcome strangers, 
hove around a bend into the midst of the revel. 
Denison was as much surprised as the minks were, 
and though their stampede was a marvel of dis- 
persive celerity, he was quick enough on trigger 
to make one panic-stricken mink bite the sand. 
Kaquotash went ashore and appropriated the carcass. 
He said its pelt was just what he wanted for a to- 
bacco pouch. ]^or was tliis the only animal trophy 
of Denison. There was a brace of partridges sand- 
ing their craws. After he fired into one of them, 
there was very little that was sandy, but a good 
deal that was leaden, in the demised partridge's maw. 
But broiled partridge enriched our next bill of fare. 
We startled a flock of " sawbills" or "floppers." 
They are fish-eating ducks, but not themselves eat- 
able of sportsmen. David apprised us that tliis 
family of quackers is a numerous aquatic nuisance 
on the Michigami. The}-^ partly run and partly fly 
along the stream, and, wath their wings and webs 
flapping the water, and harshly quacking as they 
go, make a boisterous flight that can be heard at a 
distance. They always keep in the van of the navi- 
gator, and when out of harm's way, settle down in 
the water until the canoe again nearing, they 
scamper in another rout. The Indians predicted 
that this our introduction was likely to prelude a 
frequent, but rather distant acquaintance with the 



SUMMER WAYFARING. 143 

sawbills, as they would surely forerun us far clown 
the river. 

A pair of porcupines in the top branches of two 
neighboring trees, looking like bunches of mistletoe, 
fired Denison's ambition to fusilade them with 
his revolver. David's far-seeing eye, which took 
in, and always before any of our eyes had a sight, 
everything notable, espied a mink frantically tear- 
ing through the bushes, to its retreat. Its agility in 
making: the run was such that Denison could only 
fire an equivocal shot, which harmed neither hide 
nor hair of the noxious creature. 

"We passed a windfall, where a tornado had swept, 
like a besom of destruction, through the forest, and 
left towering pines, firs and cedars prostrate in cha- 
otic heaps and confusion, to mark its terrific devas- 
tation. To realize the utter and fearful havoc of a 
whirlwind in its career of fury and madness, one 
needs only see its swath and pathway of wreck and 
ravage in a Michigan pinery. 

We reached the portage to Michigami falls about 
one o'clock. Denison and myself, with our Indians, 
managed, by vigorous footing, to make the lower 
end of the trail just as the heavy clouds, which we 
had seen following darklingly over the back-ground, 
spread over us, and burst into drenching torrents of 
rain. The shelter-tent afforded some protection. 

Our messmates and suite who had but just reach- 
ed the upper end of the carry in the midst of the 



144 TKOUTING ON THE BRULE. 

shower, fared less fortunately. The turned-up ca- 
noe, under which they tried to compress themselves, 
was but a mockery of shelter against the merciless 
drench. In the meantime, spite of the rain, shortly 
moderating, the natives were able to start a fire. 
The blazes of the roaring heap were cheering 
warmth and glowing welcome to High and Pratt, 
when, soaked and dripping, they stalked into camp- 
None the less did we pleasantly greet their coming 
in because of the splendid mess of trout which they 
had picked ap on the way, in the rear. They had 
come upon a family of deer, a buck, doe and fawn, 
swimming the river, but, as they were without the 
necessary deadly weapon, they had no means of 
creating a disturbance or a loss in the group, and the 
fortunate trio passed scathless on its way, admir- 
able as a vision, but unavailing as venison. 

These upper falls are not a very grand and wild 
freak of nature, in the way of a cascade; there is 
no precipitous, sheer deadfall of water over an edge 
or precipice, but the river compresses its volume 
into a narrow space between a point of rocks on 
one side and a rocky wall on the other, the water 
j)itching in terraces, down an incline; the cliff rears 
straight aloft, probably a hundred or more feet, and 
is heavily garnished with small stunted cedars and 
pines; there is also nothing striking in the scenery. 
Some of the party thought the basin promising for 
trout, and, after the clouds cleared away, paced 



SUMMER WAYFAEING. 145 

along the margin from point to point, and dropped 
in their lines with the persistence of cheering hope, 
and then skimmed around in the canoe, from one 
and another current or eddy; but the only signs or 
responses to the fly were from the aggravating 
chubs. The trout there, if any, were too wary for 
the party. 

l!^o useless time, however, was lost in tentative 
casting. It was our fate to lie idly by the rest of 
the day, with wet goods to hang over the Are, to 
dry the tents and patch the leaks in the birchen 
fleet. In the later monotony of the afternoon, the 
literary fever rather vehemently strnck ns. In the 
brilliant flashes of silence, and while the genial 
warmth of the fiery log heaps soothed us, each one 
yielded to the sorcery of the book. Denison was 
absorbed in the "American Senator," possibly 
dreaming or hoping to be one. Pratt took a shine 
to "Joshua Haggard's Daughter." High devoted 
his intellect to " Heaps of Money." I sharpened 
my appetite for the coming supper of trout, by 
reading of trout in honest Walton's pages. While 
we were so occupied, the shadows stole on and 
deepened into night. 
10 



OHAPTEK XII. 

SCARECROW DUCKS — CAMPING PLACE — EASE, REST, ISOLATION 
-=-A RAVEN — THE RIVER — LAKE MART — NATURAL PARK 
CAMP — IN CAMP — PAINT RIVER — RED ROOSTER AND SQUAW 
— DERELICT CANOE — THE FOUNDLING-^HARD NAVIGATION 
— PAINT FALLS— A MOUSE STORY. ^ 

After the vesper meal of trout, the sawbill 
plague was a prominent theme of indignant con- 
fabulation. The pernicious water-tramps had dur- 
ing the day verified Kaquotash's ill report of them, 
in their appearance, from time to time, at the front 
of us. On our nearing them the flock would start 
up and off, keeping to the water, winnowing it as 
they moved on, boisterously splashing and harshly 
squawking, so as to make them a moving van of 
scarecrows' to all the game in the woods. When 
the flock preceded us to the falls, it kept on in the 
current and swept along with the whirl of the tor- 
rent, and reappeared resilient out of the vortex 
below, as so many corks bobbing up from a forced 
submersion. 

(146) 



SUMMER WAYFARING. 147 

Our camp was so well conditioned bj night, 
when we were rested and dried, that we enjoyed in 
it the combined pleasnres — ease, comfort and con- 
tent. The blazing trunks of pines equally bright- 
ened and warmed us ; the rumble of the falling 
waters and the lulling murmur of the stream in 
our front made soothing music for the senses; the 
light of the swinging lamp enlivened the interior 
of the tent. "We gossiped into late hours, and with 
good cheer of mirth and laughter — for there is no 
place like a forest camp-mess for stories and fun — 
we smoothed the way to slumber, that was refresh- 
ing and sweet. 

The complete repose of mind, with no thought 
of shop and with but little of the world or of the 
war in Europe, of the news and life of the day at 
home even, was the charm and blissfulness of our 
scenes and pastimes in the far-off unpeopled wild- 
erness. Here were none of the pervading agencies 
of civilization, business and industry, with their 
cares and importunities — elsewhere ever ceaseless — 
to perturb our mental isolation and quiet. !N^o 
railway and its rushing train ; no telegraph stretch- 
ing as mj^stic chords to bear us thrills of message 
from our homes; no daily journal to mirror us a 
life other than our own ; no presences to link us to 
the world beyond our immediate horizon. It was 
this mental repose that made our hemlock couches 
as soft as beds of roses and sleep so deep and re- 



14:8 TKOUTiisra on the brule. 

f resliinf^. It was this that made every encampment 
seem a happy Arcadia of peace and content. 

We vanished from the dashing of the Michis:ami 
Falls, The clouds were threatening, and their 
pluvial omens were soon realities of showering. The 
drops streaked down the glaze of the ponchos in 
harmless watery films or veins. A good many 
pufiTs of foam, like great white sponges, floated from 
the falls. The rain pattered the stream into broad- 
cast tiny bubbles. A raven winged a high flight 
over our heads, and flew shyly and croaked spite- 
fully at us, as if he were averse to human society, 
and was, evidently, not in his nature akin to the 
friendly raven that fed the holy prophet with bread. 

Three miles from the start David espied a far-oflT 
deer in the brush, and saluted it with a rifle-ball, 
which clipped the twigs close by, and started it 
snorting with fright into the safe asylum of the 
woods. The crack of the gun sounded an alarum 
to our evil genii, the floppers, which scooped along 
the water and clamorously squawked down tlie 
stream. 

The river swelled into wider bounds as we pro- 
ceeded, with fewer rapids and shallows, but bordered 
with a vivid density of foi-est and uniformity of 
wildness. "We were in a silent domain of all unsub- 
dued nature. The sprays of the pines moved neither 
with the gentle sway or tremor of a breeze or with 
the quiver of a bird. The scenery appeare 1 brood- 



SUMMER WAYFARING. 149 

ing in a calm as still as the landscape of a picture, 
but with an exuberance of richness which no pencil 
of art, but only the touch of nature, could produce. 

At noon, we landed at the portage to Lake Mary. 
It was a scarcely visible entrance to a labyrinth 
of bushes and woods, the pathway of which was 
tortuous and barely traceable, and beset, throughout, 
with undergrowths that had to be bent or brushed 
aside, and made our f)otsteps tardy and weary. 
When we emerged from the density and touched 
the edge of the lake, the little sheet shone in the 
radiance of the sun like a glittering mirror in a 
leafy setting of emerald. The azure of the sky and 
the snowy clouds were reflected in its pure depths, 
an imaged heaven, each seeming the other, the sky 
the water and the water the sky, without a wayward 
zephyr rippling it with a breath to wrinkle or dis- 
turb the picture. While the boys were lugging 
over the canoe and the stowage, we had full time, 
reclining on the grassy slope, to restfully muse and 
enjoy the summer glories blended in the scene. 

The water was crystal ly clear. We thought it 
must be stocked with fish. When the canoes weie 
in motion, trolling lines were put out, but uselessly. 
The lake curved, and was not wholly seen in a first 
view. Around the bend, the panorama of lake and 
shores spread out more charmingly, though the 
sheet was not a large one. The stillness of the 
whole scene was impressive. Little of life was 



150 TK^^TING ON THE BRULE. 

heard or seen. A solitary loon, moaning its plaintive 
notes, lamentable as a sepulchral wail, was the only 
somid or sign of living thing on its silent expanse. 

"We made the further end of the lake, about a 
mile, at a knoll swelling gently up from the little 
cove or nook in which the canoes were landed. The 
undergrowth had at some period doubtless been 
burned out, and the forest thinned by fire, yet with 
enough scattering green-flourishing pines and firs 
left by the destroying scourge for shade, and to 
make the several acres of rolling surface a handsome, 
natural park. On the summit of the lawn, velvet 
with carpeting green, the tents were ultimately 
placed for the day. A rain, with repeated acces- 
sories of thunder and lightning ripping closely over 
us, copiously outpoured, for a time, and streamed 
down the canvas roofing. 

Most of the time during the afternoon we were 
housed in for shelter, as the dropping of the clouds 
was nearly constant. Ourselves snug and dry within, 
the cheap novels, at such a time resources of some 
utility, served to relieve the situation of much of its 
dreariness, and to make the party unconcerned about 
the action of the elements. The Indians, in their 
tented lair, comforted themselves with cards and 
tobacco. After night set in and the repast was 
finished, and the clouds had dispersed, the camp-fire 
cheerily lapped the great pine heap in jets and 
tongues of fiame and we squatted around it. 



SUMMER WAYFARING. 1^1 



Oiir spirits bi-iglitened in the glow of the genial 
blazes, and the crackling of the flames was out- 
r.oised by the lively chatter of much-speaking lips. 
The forms of the smoke, fantastically rising and 
vanishing like spectral shadows into the night above, 
were not lighter and more varying than our wanton- 
ing fancies. Memories of other woodland scenes, 
or of wanderings of other days, were recalled.^ AVe 
heard Denison's story of his mountain travel m the 
West, of his ascent of Pike's Peak, and of the more 
perilous climb of Long's peak, as well. Hours were 
thus passed, near unto the witching time of night 
and were made the pleasanter by those friendly and 
ready servitors of all the hours of some of us-the 
meerschaum pipes. The night's camp-fire lighted 
the shrine of memory with a blazonry of recollec- 
tions delightful and enduring, and, for the time, at 
least, paled the memories of the firelights on the 
hearthstones at home. , 

The waking in the morning was to a rat-tat ot ram 
pattering on the tent. The showering, however, 
gradually softened into a mist, and finally that van- 
ished, though the clouds still hovered in the sky, 
portending other coming rain. But neither such 
prQo-nostics of ill-weather nor the beauty of the 
landscape there could delay us from a quickstep ad- 
vance towards attractive regions beyond. 

It is a two mile portage to the Paint river. To 
aid the Indians, each of us swung some parcel 



152 TROUTING ON THE BRULE. 

of his own outfit over his shoulder or gripped it in 
his hands, and tottered burdensomelv along^ the 
tortuous footway. Bearing these fardels was, with 
some of us at least, to grunt and sweat under a 
weary load, verj^ unlike the burdens we were accus- 
tomed to carry. Denison, however, rather plumed 
himself on having achieved a prodigy in the instance 
of his trans])ortation. To throw our portable ca- 
pacities in the shade and vaunt his own, he troubled 
himself to weigh in the fish scales, one by one, the 
separate parcels of his load. The total pounds 
avoirdupois were fifty-seven. As the Indians made 
light of packs more than double that weight, he 
thought he would scarcely hoist flying coloi's, or 
very particularly allude to the sinews of Hercules 
or the shoulders of Atlas. 

By noon the carrying was finished. The trail 
led to a high bank or knob of a hill, and had a 
cleared space for former camping. It overlooked a 
broad, smooth reach of the Paint river, skirted with 
borders of unbroken forest. At the foot of the hill, 
a little brook, hidden under interlacing branches, 
and cold with the chill of its supplying or parent 
springs, ran into the stream. Doubtless it was a 
very covert for shoals of trout. High and Denison 
must have had an insight of this, for they set out 
with rods and baskets, to find some accessible silent 
nook or recess free enough of limbs and brush 
wherein to cast the fly. Wherever they pushed on 



SUMMER WAYFARING. ^^^ 



they found the little stream impenetrably guarded 
and hedged against the art and patience of al 
anglers, by the density of defensive overgrowth and 
undergrowth. 

We had dinner there. Just while we were taKing 
the last morsels of our meal, a canoe hove into port 
with a freight of three-a Chippewa gentleman, 
barefoot, and two squaws of the same aboriginal ity, 
apparentlv matron and maid. The ladies tnnidly 
looked at" us, and quietly maintained their broad, 
squat and bundle-like position in the canoe, seeming 
tJ imply that as "white men are mighty uncer- 
tain," they would prefer to keep their distance, bo 
they remained and rode at anchor. 

Ked Booster, or whatever his name was, knowing 
some of our Indians, and, possibly sniffing m his 
sensitive nostrils the disseminating aroma of diet, 
intrepidly climbed or hoisted himself up the hill to 
camp, and began to pow-wow the natives of the ret- 
inue Cordial relations were soon established, and 
the Menominee or Chippewa vernacular was the 
medium of their voluble civilities. One word of 
it, " now-o-UK or an expression very like that, 
seemed to reach a most tender spot in Ked Rooster s 
capacious diaphragm. We took it to be the Menom- 
inee phrase for pot-luck or grub, and the Chippewa 
evidently considered himself an invited guest. 

He evinced a most accommodating alacrity at 
taking a chair, by straddling a log, at the table, 



154 TROUTING ON THE BRULE. 

which was a packing-box upside down. He was not 
taking- his dinner in courses, but made a promis- 
cuous onset on all the dishes. He was not mealy- 
mouthed in familiarizing himself with the potatoes. 
He was not at ail prejudiced against the Japan tea. 
A second supply of it seemed beatifying. That 
Indians, as some speculators theorize, are not de- 
scendants of the lost tribes of Israel, the havoc he' 
made in the pork side-dish was sufficient proof. 
His proclivity for the cooked hog would silence a 
suspicion of the remotest kinship or affinity to the 
Jews. In fact, all our cooking was precisely to his 
taste. He showed what he could do when he had 
a chance at high living like ours. 

If not told the dining guest was a Chippewa, we 
might have believed him a Gros Ventre. The 
greedy savage lost his gallantry in his glut, for 
never a morsel did he bear to the crone and maid in 
the canoe, though we offered for them the hospital- 
ity of the cuisine. They knew our tea only by its 
vapors, and our pork l)y its odor. It was all a 
Barmecide feast to them. 

Red Rooster and the ladies were going in our 
direction, foraging for game. So, when we embarked, 
he and they ejiibarked and consorted with us. 
He and our men poled the canoes side by side, and 
kept up fluent guttural clack between the pushes. 
The women shared liberally in the palaver, and 
evinced the civilized sex's fluency of speech. Over 



SUMMER WAYFARING. 155 

in tlie1)iislies, David espied a half-concealed bircli- 
bark canoe, dry-docked in a bower of leaves. He 
ran in, and landed himself to inspect the treasure 
trove, determined, if it were a prize, to condemn 
and appropriate it by Indian law, as derelict. 

David and Paul hauled the canoe out of her cun- 
ning embosomraent of leaves, and submitted her to 
close inspection. They set to work at repairing her 
by smirching the cracks and seams in her birchen 
sheathing with a glaze of resin and pitch. 

The Indian ladies stepped ashore to lend hands 
to David in the process. It was nothing to them 
to step out in the wet. Their kips and Balbrig- 
gan hose, if such effeminate trifles they had, were 
away in their far-off wigwam domicile. They waded 
about in the water like Naiades, and daubed on the 
streaks of pitch like experts. 

I had an interview with one of the female dab- 
sters, who was melting resin by puffing flame on it 
from a burning chunk. I said: "Please let me 
have your fire to light a cigar," in my language. 
She passed it to me with a mellifluous " Ugh," in her 
lano-ua^e. The interview was thus short, but mu- 
tiially agreeable and suave. 

Finally, when the canoe was thought water-tight, 
it was launched into its native element. We named 
it the Foundling, to give its history in the name. 
David and myself, after shifting part of the load to 
the Tom King, went on in the new shallop. Den- 



156 TKOUTING ON THE BKULE. 

ison and Paul paddled their own canoe. The 
Dickej, with High and Thebault, had stolen away 
a long advance march on us. A couple of miles 
further we parted with our Chippewa consort, 
which turned off in a branch around an island, on 
an exploration for muskrat, mink and deer. David 
presented the vermilion dames, who had helped him 
patch the Foundling, with a perfumed cake of Bab- 
bitt's soap. 

We found the Paint, on but short acquaintance, 
to be a hard stream up which to run our prow. It 
is broad, shallow and rapid, and but for the Sunday 
rain, which drained into it and overlaid its shoals 
as well as speeded its currents, we must have fought 
our way, light-laden as was our craft, inch by 
inch. Even as it was, in many places advance 
was a tedious scuffle, and frequently David was 
forced to wade and drag the pinnace by the nose. 
Once, too, I was obliged to take to water, to lighten 
the canoe over shallows that were merely a ragged 
and threadbare cover of stream. 

We reached the Paint Falls, though but seven or 
eight miles, from our embarkation point on this 
river, just in time to catch the last roseate flushes 
of sunset on the water, crimsoning it as if a stream 
of blood had run red into it from the carnage of a 
battle-field, a glory of color worthy of a Titian to 
paint. The falls are a broad curving break, with 
a low rock formation, large boulders upheaving their 



SUMMER WAYFAEING. 157 

bold fronts In places, the water parting around them 
in foaming currents, so tliat, on the approach from 
below, the cascade looked like slopes of ground, 
streaked and patched with drifts of snow. 

The camp was at the further end of the carry 
around the falls. A space for the tents had to be 
cleared of bushes and branches, which rapidly fell 
before the strokes of Thebault's axe. Though a huge 
drift-pile was near by, a gorge of pines of many 
freshets, it was difficult to get wood for warming 
and cooking. There had been no campers here 
before us this year. We were the pioneers of the 
season. Pratt and High found places to drop their 
flies, and were skilled enough to befool a mess of 
fifteen glistening trout from the pools, which were 
served in their sweetest freshness and flavor on the 
supper platters. 

The ill-omened gang of Michigami sawbills, or 
some of their detestable kind, had forerun us 
here. They disturbed the serenity of Denison's 
temper, and, after a bit of strategy for a good posi- 
tion, he fired a hail of shot into the flock, and, by a 
good fortune which is rare in the case of this wary 
duck, one of them w?s killed. "When it was brought 
in by the canoe, and laid at his feet, Frank exulted 
over the dead fowl. It was the proudest moment 
of his life, and so forth. He took a Falstaff atti- 
tude, " there lies Percy for you ! " He has such an 
antipathy against this species of the duck, that if he 



158 TROUTING ON THE BRULE. 

could, by one murderous explosion, blow the wliole 
flock of these disturbing nomads into annihilation, 
he would ask no other laurel, and would return home 
without again trying to strike a trout or shoot a 
deer. 

From our camping fire, at night, the flames threw 
up a ruddy glare which tinged the massive foliage 
of the great pines into illuminated drapery of fan-- 
tastic shapes. In the genial radiance, we bright- 
ened, and the dark solitudes and depths of the 
wood echoed the noise and laughter of the camp. 
Denison related us the thrilling story of a mouse 
prodigy. His office was infested with mice, which 
nibbled and chewed his chancery files, and they 
were too wary for the cheap device of a mouse-trap. 
He charged a shot-gun with small shot, and laid for 
the petty spoilers. One of them crept out slyly, 
just in the nick of time to draw his shower of 
leaden mustard seed. He fired away at it, but 
the mouse slunk back to its retreat, as he supposed 
with a whole skin. Next day, in turning over the 
papers, he found the mouse laid out, defunct. 

The odd and curious part of Denison's story was 
that the mouse had practiced a bit of surgery on 
itself by liaving plugged a shot- wound in its side 
M'ith a wad of paper to stanch hemorrhage! On 
this reLation Pratt simply ejaculated, "Well, I de- 
clare! " High said he begged to consider the story 
as bordering on the marvelous. I added, " Frank, 



SUMMER WAYFAKING. 159 

yonr affidavit on that," He declared liis readiness to 
swear to it, and as a Master in Chancery wonld 
administer the oath himself. High gave his profes- 
sional opinion that an oath administered before him- 
self, as Master in Chancery, by himself to himself, 
was a legal nullity, and he thought a solecism, and 
he believed no precedent could be found in the books 
to warrant such practice, and, in fact, such an oath, 
in the language of the law of Wouter Yan Twiller's 
time, was nix noot. As Denison was too scrupulous 
to prostitute the important functions of a Chancery 
Master, or to trifle with the solemn formalities of 
the law, \h.e jurat w?i& dispensed with, and each one 
was left to his own meditations on the mouse. 



CHArXER XIII. 

THE JOUNDLING ABANDONED— RARITY OF BIRDS— MORE SAW- 
BILLS — A PORTAGE — A PORCUPINE — TROUT RIVER CAMP — A 
SNAKE INCIDENT — A BEAR INCIDENT TOO — TROUT RIVER — 
PILLARS OF HERCULES— FLATS AND SHALLOWS — DIFFICULT 
NAVIGATION — BEAVER DAM — AN EAGLE — LAKE CHICAGON — 
— CHRISTENING OP LAKE MINNIE. 

The current of the Paint was so stiff that two men 
were required to run the canoes. We could not 
make such a distribution of muscular power as was 
necessary, if we took the waif canoe further on. So 
we left the Foundling, high and dry in the woods, 
for some succeeding party to pick up and appropriate. 

The river above the falls was broader, shallower, 
and more rapid than below. At many places, the 
navigators waded and dragged the birches along, 
and at one point, all of us stepped out and wetted our 
shins and trousers in the shallow. The party in the 
Dickey was in the lead. We had the tantalizing 
but useless privilege of seeing three deer wading 
(ICO) 



SUMMER WAYFARIKG. 161 

over, on their soutliward emigration way, without 
any means of making anything but a distant ac- 
quaintance of them, for want of guns. 

Denison, in our boat, had a chance shot at an 
overflying straggling flopper, and exultingly slaugh- 
tered the flagitious duck, and not long after caught 
sight, in the far-oif perspective, of a lively moving 
buck in a dissolving view. Our way was through 
a monotony of dense foliage of vivid green, a very 
huge wall, or precipice-like mass of verdure, 
seemingly planted on the water itself, so few and 
scant were the patches of naked shore, and so 
meagre were the strips of sand on the edge of the 
stream. 

Beyond the water front, all was solitary and un- 
trodden wilderness. We remarked everywhere, thus 
far, the exceeding rarity of bird-life in these im- 
mensities of woods. Few are the " wood-notes wild " 
of forest songsters. The twigs and branches but 
seldom bend or sway with the pressure of plumages. 
The silence of the forest is solemn and death-like. 
At this season, even the water -fowl are not numer- 
ous. A kingfisher sometimes swooped down from 
a hanging branch, to make a scoop of small fry, or, 
scared by us, darted from his perch of observation, 
with an angry scream, to a limb further away. 
Ducks were yet unseasonable — that is, those that a 
sportsman would covet for his game-bag. The pes- 
tilent congregation of floppers which heralded our 
11 



163 TROUTING ON THE BRULE. 

advance, or their congeners, was not wanting. It was 
rather early, too, for the herds of migrating deer. 

We had so slowly worked a way up, that it was 
noon before we touched our landing-place. It was 
a portage of a half mile. It was the usual trail of 
roughness and narrowness, of masses of foliage and 
net-work of bushes. On the way, we passed wild 
cherry trees. Of their red fruitage the bears are 
]iarticularly greedy. It M^as not strange, then, that 
unmistakable bear tracks imprinted the path, and 
that there were other signs of recent ursine presence 
and cherry-tree spoliation. Very naturally, there- 
fore, an emergency of bear could not be thought 
improbable, and so a look-out was kept, and the 
armor of defense, in the hands of Denison, was 
kept in a state of preparation for instant action; 
that is to say, the gun to shower buck-shot and the 
somewhat damaged belt-knife to do the jabbing and 
ripping business. 

But in our progress of armed caution no beast 
more savage or perilous than a porcupine was en- 
countered, and that one was taking a survey of the 
country, doubtless, from the topmost limb of a lofty 
pine. Denison had renewed porcupine entertain- 
ment on this occasion, and in the contest for life 
which ensued Denison prevailed, and the porcupine 
dropped suddenly from his lofty perch, in obedience 
to the inflexible law of survival of the fittest. We 
came to an inexpressibly paltry and dismal lakelet, 



SUMMER WAYFARma. . 163 

or really pond, of dead water. It had at a distance 
a sicklj greenish hue, like that of tlie scnrf of a 
frog-pond. But this semblance of green slime was, 
in fact, caused by the countless water-lilies whose 
leaves were spread flat, as if drooped and prostrated 
by some vegetable epidemic blight, and overlapped 
thickly like fish scales. We crossed this mess of 
water and lily pads. In the sand, where we landed 
fresh imprints betokened recent presence of deer. 
The portage thence to Trout yiver was a mile and 
a half of the usual multitudinous impediments of 
the trail. Though we should reach the end and 
the night together, we at once set out on the wea- 
risome tramp. To afford us speedier and easier 
carrying, the canoes were beached on the shore, to 
be taken over in the morning. The place for 
encampment was a dreary, low, swampy, malarious 
pine-flat, ^more uninviting and deepened into un-- 
pleasantness, from the gloomy shadows of the twi- 
light. The atmosphere was moist and dank. It 
was a geographical necessity — a Ilobson's choice, a 
clear case of willy-nilly — that obliged us to content 
ourselves with that as our place of nocturnal so- 
journ. Trout river was a few rods off". In the last 
leaden somberness of the day, we could discern a 
cheerless outlook of a crooked, narrow, sluggish 
channel of open stream, in a meadow or broad 
^ margin of ooze, bottomless mud, and water lilies, 
where a sand-hill crane would mire in the slime or 



164 TROUTING ON THE BRULE. 

get tangled in the thick-set plant of reeds and 
grasses. 

How we were, in the morning, to tide canoes, 
cargoes, and ourselves, over the marshy and nasty 
morass, to the free water, was a quandary of spec- 
ulation. The dilemma had to be turned over, for 
solution, to the engineering resources of the Indi- 
ans. We had trust in David's wood-craft experi- 
ence. He looked the spirit of Yirgil's hero, aut 
inveniam viam aut faciam^ and we were confident 
he' would find a way, or make a way. It was im- 
possible, from the end of the trail, for him to get 
directly to the river for even enough water for 
supper purposes. Access was gained by a long 
oblique of route to the water, but after much exper- 
imental patience and exploration. He told us that 
only by a liberal swing of the ax, in some places, 
and corduroying or pontooning the slumps with 
branches at others, a way of extrication to the river 
was possible. 

Spite, however, of adverse surroundings, and 
first impressions, the blazes of the camp fire tipped 
the shadowing trees with ruddy tinges, and sent up 
fire-flies of sparks dotting the whirls of smoke, and 
the camp was robed in a livery of light. By the 
time the supper platters were set before us, after 
unusual delay in the preparation, our appetites were 
sharpened to unwonted fineness of edge, and the 
supper's eating was something voracious. The 



SUMMEK WAYFARING. 165 

moral effects of tlie repast, as well as the enlivening 
transformation scenes wrought around us by the 
brilliant flames of pine, much elevated and cheered 
the tone of the party. We settled ourselves to the 
conviction that we were not far from being happj, 
and could accept the situation in much good humor 
and with exceeding grace. We fell into a lively 
babble of tongues, little less than exhilarating. 

David interested us with many of his forest rem- 
iniscences and, like another Scheherezade, became 
a narrator of Indian Night's Entertainments. One 
of these night entertainments made a sensation. 
It was peculiarly topical and apropos in its bear- 
ing; it was an incident of a former camping party 
at this very spot. While the campers were wrap- 
ped in the lulling embrace of Morpheus, three large 
snakes crawled into the tent; one of these wriggled 
over the uncovered shin of one of the sleepers, 
and, as if an elongated icicle were drawn over 
the tibia, with such frigid effect as to bring him to 
liis immediate senses. The impromptu scene of 
midnight panic and confusion that followed, was 
indescribable. This reptilian reminiscence had a 
bad effect on ns, and chilled our fervency of spirit, 
and induced crawling sensations in each particular 
spine of the party. 

" Be there bears i' th' town ? — they are very ill- 
favored, rough things." Master Slender's inquiry 
and his zooloo-ical hint would have been in order 



166 TKOUTING ON THE BRULE. 

in our camp. Kaquotash's tale of serpents put ns 
in a kind of cold shiver that the blankets conld not 
entirely warm away. To have been surprised in 
our sleeping, by a serpent creeping in the tent and 
coiling in one of the manly bosoms there, might 
not now have appeared supernatural or quite out 
of the course of the fitness of things in a Trout river 
swamp. But the fate of being hugged to the 
bosom of an unceremonious black bear ! It is not 
easy to say how nearly some of us came to realizing 
such an unexpected embrace. In fact, in " the dead 
vast and middle of the night," and out of the wil- 
derness, while we were sunk in the depth of sleep, 
a veritable bear did loom into appearance and stalk 
around the camp, crackling the dry brush, stirring 
the bushes and leaving his paws imprinted in the 
mud. He ranged closely enough to us to prove 
that he meant no good and was on no peaceful 
errand. He was smelling about for our provision 
stores, doubtless, wuth a keen snout and watering 
mouth, and, it may be, with designs on the occu- 
pants of the tent as well as on the commissariat. 

High sometimes sleeps with one eye open, or 
was at least, on half ocular watch for SM^amp-snakes 
at the time, and knew what was afoot. He sound- 
ed a tocsin of alarm. Denison awoke rather con- 
fused, and probably having just been dreaming 
himself a Laocoon in the coil of the serpents, or of 
wrestling in the compressive grip of a full-grown 



SUMMER WAYFARING. 167 

nightmare, and wishing to have his grapple out 
with the incubus or the snakes, was ratlier slow in 
coming to the front, but on realizing the situa- 
tion, reached about for his trusty field-piece, and 
then remembered it was unloaded, after all. He 
requested his bed-fellow, Pratt, to turn him over 
his caisson, and for once it was out of the way, and 
not readily found. Pratt was probably somnambu- 
listic, and not conceiving the demand, fumbled 
around, and, as the first thing he could lay his 
hands on, clutched one of High's long-legged boots. 
The point of Denison's savage knife was left at 
camp Mary sticking in a tree in which it was broken 
off while being pitched at a mark. For instant 
use, there were only the angling rods to punch out 
the enemy's eyes. I tried to muster enough in- 
trepidity for the pinch from confidence in the ter- 
rifying effects of ray guinea-hen hat which would 
make it a shield of safety against any ordinary car- 
niverous beast. Our defensive means, therefore, 
were uncertain. 

The pickle we were in was a pretty one; but, 
fortunately, our Indian allies were wide-awake, to 
save our figurative and our actual bacon, David 
was a veteran of the woods, and was as quick to 
hear a bear in the night as he was to sight a deer 
in sunlight. He had emerged from his snoring, 
and tip-toed out of the tent with his weapon in 
hand, and peered through the darkness, waiting a 



168 TROL'TING ON THE BRULE. 

certain aim on the bear's closer approach. The 
Kaquotashes are not stran^^ers in those parts, and 
the bears well know there is no foolishness about 
one of them when he has his rifle handy. This par- 
ticular bruin seasonably took the hint and sneaked 
off with a l.vely trot into the depths of the further 
darkness, leaving our sustenance untouched and 
with but a faint sniff of the flesh-pots for his pains. 

In the morning, Pratt somewhat gave himself up 
to mild chagrin. He thought it an ill-chance that 
he had not been more broad awake, so that he might 
have met the opportunities of the occasion by hav- 
ing gone and contended with the bear. Had he 
taken in the situation in time, doubtless, he would 
have stalked out, as Hauilet once appeared, with his 
doublet, and so-forth, all unbraced, for the enter- 
prise, with stomach in it for the bear but that drowsi- 
ness overpowered his blood^"^ purpose, turned it 
awry and lost it the name of action. 

The natives hewed and cleared out a way from 
the camp to the water — but water thick-set with 
lily pads, and shallow over mud bottom, in which 
the canoes floundered dubiously, with decided ten- 
dencies to fixed adhesion. We finally got out of 
the swamp into a flowing of clear winding stream, 
with the scantiest depth. A beaver dam stretched 
a little obstruction across, and delayed the passage, 
while it was being knocked to pieces. A mile be- 
yond was a tortuous chain of rapids, where the 



SUMMER WAYFARING. 169 

water tumbled ov^er tlie stones in a bed or gutter of 
a width barely enough for a canoe. This passage 
was so densely bordered and overhang with 
branches, there were so many trees fallen across, 
and there was such a lack of navigable stream, thai 
all the pale faces of the party took on a trifle more 
of paleness at the prospect of having come to a full 
stop. The situation seemed to be the pillars of 
Hercules of our route, the very ne lylus ultra. 

While we were driven to our wits' end to see a 
way through, the Indians were not at their wits' 
end, nor the journej^'s end, either. They pros- 
pected and pow-wowed earnestly, and presently we 
saw in their faces a cheery flickering that seemed 
to say where there is a will there must be a way. 
So they set to work, and, literally, made a way by 
picking out stones from the channel, chopping 
limbs, dragging out sunken brush, and lifting the 
canoes along, inch by inch. Our own course 
through the woods, by short-cut, was almost impos- 
sible. Scratches and bruises, climbing over and 
stooping under, and crawling on and slipping off 
prostrate trees, breaking down decayed timber, stum- 
bling against 'roots, twisting branches aside, were 
some of the impediments of the tramp. Part of the 
way I took to the water and waded it, and, hard as 
it was to balance on the rounded and slippery rocks, 
and to keep from tumbling over, it was easier than 
penetrating the natural abattis, and I came out 



170 TROUTING ON THE BRULE. 

ahead at the end of the ordeal. The passas^e, 
though not more than a hundred yards direct, 
was a tug and toil of more than two hours. 

From this passage, the river spread out into a 
width of shallows with soft muddy bottom, and 
with strips and flats of ooze and marsh along. In 
some places we slid through a soft mire, pushed by 
the setting poles, which sometimes stuck ftist, and' 
stirred up bubbles and nasty smells. While we 
were floundering through the quagmire, a mallard 
duck was reckless enough to fly and quack overhead, 
within reach of a charge from Denison, which 
dropped it near by in an inaccessible swash. In 
the struggles of its dying paroxysms, it bedaubed 
its glossy coloring with an unsightly stucco of 
mire. 

The river soon lost some of its dreariness by 
expanding into a lake a mile and a half long and 
nearly as wide. The entrance to it was through a 
jungle of reeds and grasses, but further out, there 
was a clear expanse, that laid as smooth and still as 
the reflected azure in its depths. It is called, at 
least it was known to us as Lone Grave Lake. It 
owes its doleful name to the accident of having on 
its shore a solitary burial mound that commemo- 
rate? some kind heart's affection or memory for the 
unknown dead, whose lonely remains repose there 
in the unending sleep. As a mortuary memento, 
in the way of funereal cogitation, however, the iso- 



SUMMER WAYFARING. 171 

lated tumulus visibly affected no known member of 
our party. 

We converged into tlie river again, and it was 
again an ordeal — trying patience and straining 
muscle to force any passage. We made baste so 
slowly tliat the liours went on apace faster than we. 
The stream shriveled into narrowness and crooked 
into infinite sinuosities; the lily-pads and water 
grasses waved — a harvest of excrescence and pester- 
ing friction — before and around us. There were 
reaches of slime in which we stuck fast, and no one 
dared get out to lighten or push on the canoe 
for fear of sinking into inextricable adhesion; it 
was easy to deepen the poles in the mud, bnt the 
pulling out was a job. More than all, the pushing 
poles stirred up from the bottom ooze and feculence 
the foulest of smells, rivaling, as essence of stink, 
the combined fetor of skunk and assafo3tida; as a 
nostril nuisance. Trout river in places, in its mild- 
est eflluvium, was as malodorous and unsavory as 
Chicago river in its hot dog-day exuberance of 
sewage and offal. 

"Not rarely, too, were the Menominees obliged to 
swing the axe. Here a fallen tree, with a radiation 
of limbs, there half-sunken brush-heaps, elsewhere 
a saw-like dentation of snags, bade defiance to paddle 
or pole, barring the way until they vanished before 
the strokes of the axe. The business of getting on 
was entirely too serious to admit of fooling with 



172 TKOUTING ON THE BKULE. 

the porcupines we saw liere and there. Denison, 
though, was always ready to pepper a flying duck 
and brought down several, apparently just to keep 
in practice his wing-shooting, of which he is justly 
proud. Kaquotash says that in the fall this river 
swarms with ducks of all varieties, and that they 
are plentier than the lilies. 

After the gauntlet of difficulties so tediously 
passed through, we were brought to a stand-still by a 
formidable beaver-dam. But vexation gave way 
to admiration. It was a consummate piece of 
beaver engineering. It extended about seventy 
feet. In form it was an irregular curve with the 
extreme convex point in the channel, so as to turn 
the current into a dip on each side. The face was 
solidl}^ embanked with earth, sloping smoothly and 
evenly from the top, while the mass of the struc- 
ture was compacted of the most close contexture of 
logs, limbs, and sticks, very artfully interlaced and 
dovetailed. Its dimensions were such that it must 
have been the work of much time and multitudin- 
ous beavers, although, for such fish as could live and 
swim in the nasty stream, it M'as hardly worth a dam 
to the beavers to pen and impound them. Because 
it was a solid and fine specimen of animal construc- 
tion, there was no help for us but to unload the shal- 
lops, lift them up and launch them over, and load 
them again. 

On starting again, the further we went the 



SUMMER WAYFARING. 1T3 

harder tlie tug and the heavier the drag. Tediously 
and wearisomely we plodded forward. About three 
o'clock we struck another beaver dam of lesser and 
ruder construction than the last one, but as it 
marked the end of our Trout river progi'ess, we 
were not obliged to demolish or to surmount it. 
The portage to Lake Chicagon began there. We 
congratulated ourselves on emerging from a slough 
of despond, and appreciated more than ever the 
indomitable and tireless energy and patience of the 
aborigines. Our eight miles of trip here showed 
we were more lono^-comino^ than far-comino^. We 
gladly landed, and a kindled and vivid log-heap 
fire soon clothed the over-arching cedars with wav- 
ering draperies of smoke. The kettle sang songs, 
and never more fragrantly did the delicate vapors 
of Japan tea exhilarate our senses than then, after 
the hungry experiences of the route. 

There, too, Denison just missed the one chance, 
possibly, of a lifetime, of pluming; himself with 
the rare spoil of Jove's royal bird. A majestic 
eagle furled his wings and perched on the branch- 
less stem of a tree that had fallen across the stream 
below us, at easy range, in clear line and full sight, 
and calmly turned his piercing eye on every side, 
and upward, too, as if "gazing 'gainst the sun" — 
and was long enough there, in his regal pride of 
feather, for a pause of admiration and wonder on 
our part, and for our gunner to reach and poise a 



174 TKOUTING ON THE BRULE. 

rifle at the splendid mark. Alackaday! it was his 
mischance tliat, with such a prize and trophy before 
him, tlie perfidious gun missed fire, and, of course, 
the monarch bird bounded up and soared away on 
outspread wings, toward the clouds. How we all, 
too, would have plumed ourselves with a quill from 
that eagle's pinions! 

From there commenced the portage to Lake Chi- 
cagon. It was short and easy. The path was free 
and open. It was through a thick cedar grove. 
The layers of decayed and fallen twigs, yielding 
softly to the footsteps, were an outspread, nature- 
woven brussels, of rude, sober and primitive pat- 
tern, fitting ground for midnight revels of the fairies 
under the moon. This carry led us up to the Trout 
river again, just above another beaver dam. This 
was the largest of those constructions yet seen, 
compacted and interwrought of trunks of consid- 
erable trees, gnawed or cut off by saws of beaver 
teeth and tugged and floated into j)lace. 

From there, the ascent to the lake, whence the 
river issues, was about ten minutes of paddle-strokes, 
and its course was through a wide marshy flat of 
reeds, lilies and grasses. In places, the river was 
almost hidden or lost in the thickness of the water- 
growths. The passage of the canoes, parting and 
bending down the serried ranks of lilies and reeds, 
left a track behind like and as marked as a path 
trodden in a grain field. Near the edge of the lake, 



SUMMER WAYFAKING. 175 

a deer was solitirily munching, but it vanislied too 
rapidly for any gunnery of ours to put it in jeop- 
ardy. 

Once out of the river, we saw spreading before 
us a most lovely expanse of water. It was of ob- 
long form, and its shore outlines were indented with 
many small bays and a few bold promontories jut- 
ted out, and in the further sweep from us, two or 
three islands loomed up, seemingly mere solid 
masses of deep green color. It was about four 
miles long and half as many miles in width. The 
water was transparently c^.ear and cool, and of much 
depth. Mackinaw trout and white fish are said to 
abound in its deep and pure recesses. We had no 
token, tliough, of Chicagon piscatory life. Lines 
were trolled, but the conjectural or reported Mack- 
inaws did not happen, just at the time, to be in 
either a hungry or ^spooney mood, and showed no 
love for the glittering spoons that wavered below, 
so nothing was drawn in — excepting the lines. 

David boldly set the course of the canoe, in 
which were High and myself, straight across the 
lake. Our frail atomy of a vessel in that pathway 
over was only safe as long as it was windless and 
the water was smooth. A boreal fluster, far short 
of a typhoon, or a nor'easter, even a moderate im- 
promptu squall, would surely have swamped and 
foundered the canoe, and probably have consigned 
the crew to the Davy Jones' locker of Lake Chica- 



176 TROUTING ON THE BRULE. 

gon. Onr weather-wise navigator trusted to liis 
Indian instincts as to blows or a cats-paw, or any 
sudden windiness, and High and I, wishing to 
Gowp cVmil the charming scene from a central point 
of view or commanding line of direction, preferred 
the diametrical bearing, Pratt and Denison, with 
an eye to a chance use of powder, navigated coast- 
wise, hugging closely to the shore. 

Of course, the elements were favorable. The sky 
was cloudless. The lake was as placid as if it had 
never tossed to the fury of a tempest; its face was 
as calm as though it were incapable of ever wrink- 
ling in anger at the buffeting of a boisterous wind. 
The scene was really lifeless enough to be termed a 
dead calm. The only signs of any life were the 
occasional loons, some winging in the air, and some 
floating on the lake, and moaningly chanting. The 
edges of the lake lap the very roots and branches 
of the forest that girds it. This is said to be an 
eifect of back-water raised into the trees by the 
beaver dam in Trout river. "We touched the ex- 
treme end of the lake towards evening, and in 
the reflection, the beautiful sheet shone like a mir- 
ror, as still, and calm, and j)m'6, as the deep azure 
above it, and with 

"Not a span 
Of its smooth surface trembling to the tune of sun-set breezes." 

We had intended camping on the border of Glu- 
cagon, though twilight had not yet begun to steal 



SUMMER WAYFARING. 177 

on; but wood for tlie fire was reported as unattain- 
able; so we turned our backs on the enchanting 
lake and set out on the portapje to another lake, un- 
named, so far as we knew, a half mile beyond. 
After leaving the thick wilderness of alders that 
bordered the water, the trail led us to and through 
hard-wood timber, including a fine maple grove, 
and woods like those of southern Illinois, free of 
undergrowth and with vistas bej^ond. This was a 
relief after a monotony of pine, hemlock, firs and 
cedars. We trudged the footway with a certain 
freedom, and without intrusive twigs and branches 
to prick or scratch us, or fallen tree-trunks to be 
escaladed. The fatis-ue was nothing. 

Near the end of the trail, glimpses of the name- 
less lake were caught. When we came to it, and 
first stood on its shore, the tinges of the red sunset 
served to idealize the crystal sheet, and its acces- 
sories of woods and verdure, into a very scene 
of faery. Its surpassing witchery touched some, at 
least, of the admiring party into moods of senti- 
ment and poesy. Perhaps Denison was one of the 
poetized or sentimentalizing- ones. Doubtless, a 
sweet truant fancy that wandered far, or some, 
haunting form, rising out of a mirage of memory, 
visible only to him, and wrought of some dear 
romance of the heart, possessed or spell-bound our 
musing comrade. For he proposed to us that we 
should give the charming water a fitting name. 
12 



178 TKODTING ON THE BRULE. 

With an intuition of the common assent, he him- 
self officiated as tlie consecrating minister in the 
impromptu christening, and pronounced the name. 
Doubtless the name was the worded theme or key- 
note to which all the heart's tender chords were 
attuned, and the name was Minnie! And all of 
us, in spontaneous nnison and sympathy, accorded 
in the naming — Lake Minnie! Even to us, who 
have no endearing associations of name to hallow 
it, Lake Minnie will come to frequent recollection, 
for it was " like a dream of poetry — beautiful ex- 
ceedingly." 



CHAPTER Xiy. 

FINE ENCAMPMENT — A NOCTURNATi RABBIT — ADIEU TO LAKE 
MINNIE — THE BRULE ! THE BRULE ! — PrATT THE WADER. 
READY FOR BUSINESS— CEDAR CAMP— THE PROSPECT— A 
DOG IN MINNESOTA — PILFERING MINKS — A DISTURBED 
REVERIE — MINKS — ASSASSINATING A MINK — SUNSET FISH- 
ING, ET CETERA. 

The camping ground on the brow of tlie ^ake was 
a choice one. It was an elevated and dry situation. 
Some of the sweetest of sleep and most grateful of 
resting were here; and then, too, we were almost 
within hail of the Brule. During: the ten tin o^ 
here, Pratt was wakened from very bal'my repose by 
an apparition of some eccentric animal of the 
manor, which finally, to his eye, took the shape of 
a pronounced rabbit, which had stolen into the 
pavilion and was wonderingly and intrepidly hop- 
ping about, prospecting the situation. When satis- 
fied that it was neither a chimera nor a nondescript 
perilous beast, but, in fact, was an actual leporine 
(179) 



180 TEOUTING ON THE BRULE. 

creature, Pratt thought it a favorable occasion for 
a nocturnal study in natural history, and indulged 
the saucy rabbit the full freedom of the tent unmo- 
lested, so that he might take his observations. The 
presumptuous puss, finding only a stubble-field of 
unshaved faces lying around, presently trotted out 
and back to its l)urrow. 

Some of us thought, however, when told of the 
incident, that it was probably a hare-brained con- 
ceit, a mere phantom-rabbit or a fantastic coinage 
of distempered sleep, caused by the excessive pork, 
potatoes and fried corn-dodgers of a late supper, or 
one of those spectral " shapes that haunt Thought's 
wilderness." But Pratt vehemently repelled the 
phantasmagoria theory, and avouched it a veritable 
and categorical rabbit, indigenous to the soil of that, 
and not an illusion of Thought's, wilderness. He 
protested that he was not fooled of his own senses, 
and that rabbit will be an immutable article of his 
faith until his dying day. 

"We started at eight o'clock in the morning, and 
paddled with metaphorical flying colors, cheerily 
and exultingly, as if our barks were similitudes of 
that in Cole's Yoyage of Life, which coursed buoy- 
antly, " with Youth at the helm, and Pleasure at 
the prow." Every stroke of the paddle moved us 
so much nearer to the Brule, and with our faces 
turned thitherward, we lingered not in our parting 
with the pure and beauteous Lake Minnie. Our 



SUMMER WAYFARING. 181 

footsteps were quicker, our spirits were more bound- 
ing, and the trudge over was easier and more will- 
ing than those of any previous march afoot. Wlien 
we strained the sight to peer ahead, and caught 
glimpses of the stream through the forest, and 
heard the murmurs of the water, and then descended 
to the foot of the hill at the river brink, we could 
fancy something of the thrill of the Greeks, on the 
return from their far expedition, at the first sight of 
the longed-for scene, in their gladsome shout, " The 
sea! the sea!" So from us, there was a vociferous 
impromptu of "The Brule! The Brule!" 

^ While the Indians were on the portage with the 
canoes and stores, we had leisure for overhauling the 
tackle, as well as for musing, lounging, smoking and 
resting. But such was the ardor of Pratt's pisca- 
torial impetuosity, an apparent emotional insanity, 
to forestall the sport, that tliough the river at that 
point offers no tempting prospects for fishing, his 
vehemence could not abide the delay of the canoe to 
carry him, but he rolled up his antique trowsers, and 
intrepidly went in on his shanks. He waded and 
splurged about promiscuously in the stream, which 
split and curled into riffles around his legs, as he 
moved or stood. Thereby he took a half dozen un- 
wary trout, but probably terrorized ail the others 
thereabouts. High, doubtless, was somewhat in- 
fected with Pratt's fever, but he preferred to indulge 
his more calculating and better regulated avidity 



182 , TKOUTING ON THE BRULE. 

dry-shod. He struggled along the bank, and chose 
a foothold on a stranded log, whence, with spend- 
thrift prodigality, he thrashed away with his rod 
and line some time, but with only a single trout- 
ling captured. 

High took this pitiful outcome with stoic calm- 
ness, and fell back on his blanket and literature. 
Denison sensibly utilized the spare time by stretch- 
ing out in the shade, and snoozing innocently but 
not quite silently, I paid -blissful tribute of greet- 
ing to the river of trout, and to the winds and skies 
that had graciously prospered us nearly all the way, 
in liberal oblations of burning incense of Havana 
from the meerschaum. Now that, like far-come 
Argonauts within sight of the golden fleece, our 
goal was at hand, and we could speedily reach 
out the hand and grasp the prize, we were content 
and tranquil. At eleven o'clock, the flotilla and its 
lading were in order for setting out for business. 
We stepped in, and then were joyously "afloat, afloat 
on the dark rolling tide " of the Brule. 

The limpid currents ran either gurgling music- 
ally over the shallows, or purling into eddies round 
an up-reared boulder, or shivering into sparkling 
ripples of tumult and riot on the rapids, or smooth- 
ing and lapsing into a reach of midsummer languor 
and faintness, but always pure, fresh and living, 
bearing in their forest-shaded course the chillnessof 
the springs and founts that fed them so unattemp- 



SUMMER WAYFARIXa. 



183 



ered of the sun as to give always a grateful draught 
for thirst when dipped in the drinking-cup. This 
was the Brule of our first experience— everywhere 
gravelled, rocky and bouldered, the very exclusive 
haunt and realm of trout, not like the Michigami 
or the Trout or Paint, with chubs and perch ming- 
ling in the population of tins. 

We could now halt the pinnaces, almost at any 
place, from time to time, and were sure of a liberal 
spoil; and, after holding up for some of these in- 
terim casts, we had gradually and idly sauntered to 
a point estimated to be about twenty-eight miles 
above the mouth of the river, where we prospected 
a most eligible camping place. It was on a bank, 
embowered by a grove of largest cedars and pines, 
with gentle slopes of surface, free of troublesome 
undergrowth, the ground velveted and elastic with 
layers of twigs, with abundant shade, plenty of fuel 
and a wealth of hemlock boughs for the ground- 
spread of the tents. We named it Cedar Camp. 
We expected to make it a stopping place for two 
or three days, and could sally out from it up and 
down, and range all the pools and fishing places 
within easy reach. We could run the canoes light 
and quickly, and flit about at will. 

The sport began auspiciously. A little over an 
hour's throwing produced a count of fifty, and, 
richly tinted and embrowned with the touches of 
the flame, they bountifully garnished the dinner 



184 TEOUTINa ON THE BRULE. 

platters in less than an hour, and ministered luxu- 
riously to waiting appetites. The two hours follow- 
ing the feast were spent in camp in various modes 
of indolent and trivial leisure and laziness. No 
exertion more serious than that of fitting a 
ring on a rod, or burnishing a reel, or charging and 
fumigating with a pipe, or shifting a position on a 
blanket from an intrusion of the sun, was suffered' 
to perturb the ease and delicious torpor of the sit- 
uation. 

Toward evening piscatorial aspirations revived. 
High and Pratt went below, and Denison and I 
breasted the tide upwardly. The fishing was of the 
best. To cast a fly upon the water was nearly a cer- 
tainty of enticing a trout. In the first half-hour 
out, we could forecast the whole story of the sport 
on the Brule. It was only to hold at any clumce 
spot, to find that our lines would be cast in places 
pleasant for us. The throw on the one side or the 
other, from the canoe, was equally lucky. The 
trout appeared populous in every direction. Kises 
were bewilderingly plentiful. We needed recon- 
noisance but a short way from the camp to find the 
swimmers in force and voracity. So we soon re- 
turned with laden baskets, and turned over the 
abundance, or rather, the sup])lies brought in, to 
the cooks; for the sui-plus, beyond the needs of the 
fry, was tossed back into the water. At supper, 
we all expressed regrets that it was not in our 



SUMMER WAYFARING. 185 

power to bestow on friends at home, part of the 
excess of our lavish supply. But here, as else- 
where, and otherwise, one man's waste is another 
man's want. 

Denison here evinced symptoms of a Minnesota 
chicken-shooting fever. He had arranged at Chi- 
cago to meet a friend for a gun-and-dog ramble 
for prairie hens. Shooting on the wing is his spec- 
iality. He would prefer dropping a few brace of 
pinnated grouse, on the rise, even to knocking a 
deer off its pegs. He had forwarded, in custody of 
the American express company, his retriever, 
Dick, in bond, to Minnesota. Probably the faithful 
dog had already chafed impatiently in his chain, 
and howled over his unfriended coercion in the 
leash, or had piteously bayed the moon for the lack 
of a job more suited to his training, and was, 
doubtless, then eagerly snuffing all the airs that 
blow in those windy latitudes for a scent of his 
master's coming. It was only a question of time 
when Denison would follow his thoughts to the dog 
and the grouse. 

Our dash for trout was not so eager, now that 
they swam closely and superfluously. We slept 
late in the morning, and were not embarked for a 
take of a dinner mess before ten o'clock. During 
the night the minks played a sneak- thief game on 
us, by pilfering every trout from the fish-pans, and, 
in the few score of dressed fish, they laid by, in one 



186 TKOUTINa ON THE BRULE. 

night's fat work of theft, in their neighboring hole, 
a gorge of trout, for a prolonged gliittinous satur- 
nalia of feasting. We were, therefore, troiitless for 
breakfast, and to avenge the wholesale sack and 
plunder, it was resolved that dead-falls should be 
set for the scurvy pillagers. So traps were con- 
structed and placed by the Indians, and, from the 
first of the next catch of trout, the most luscious 
and plump of the capture were affixed to the triggers. 
We gloated with much satisfaction on imagined 
minks entrapped, and fancied we should certainly 
see " with gripe tenacious held, the felons grin and 
struggle, but in vain." 

When we next went out the trout were lively in 
their jumping to the throw, but they were less 
keen to take the fly. It seemed more in sport than 
in hunger that they leaped and leaped again ; at f.ll 
events, we were not brilliantly successful. Only 
forty were caught by the whole party; but as enough 
was as good as a feast, or for a feast, and having 
such a reasonable catch, we spent only an hour on 
the water. This essay of the rods exhausted, for 
the time, the party's vim. Tiring of killing trout, 
we devoted all our capacity of sloth to the problem 
of killing time indolently and inertly. We drows- 
ily sat or reclined in the shade sunk in languor; we 
were not up to the mark of the usual dinner gusto. 
After the somewhat insipid rej^ast, we betook our- 
selves to the tent for a siesta; but swarms of buz- 



SUMMEK WAYFARING. 187 

zing house-flies hungrily pricked us and drove us 
out. 

High betook himself ta a mammoth cedar and 
supported it by leaning against its mossy roots, in 
its shade, as serenely as Tityrus recuhans under the 
beech tree, an impersonation of goneness and con- 
tent, and was apparently lapsing into a deep reverie. 
A couple of minks, possibly in a freak of hilarity 
over their rich nocturnal plunder, scampered near 
by him playfully gamboling and squealing, and 
startled him from his meditation. This vivacity 
was a saucy presuraptuousness provoking and great 
enough, on the instant, to rouse Denison's martial 
dander. He seized his gun and reconnoitered the 
bushes on tiptoe. Several minutes of fruitless watch- 
ing cooled down his indignant fervency, and, dis- 
arming, he became a peaceable citizen again. 
Pratt's dudgeon, on account of the meagreness of 
the matinal repast caused by the felonious ravages 
of the minks, had not even yet subsided. He, 
therefore, armed and posted himself in the bushes 
with a finger on the trigger ready to execute san- 
guinary justice. He stood guard patiently, so long 
too, in his watching and biding his time, as to sat- 
isfy us that patience was one of his cardinal virtues. 

This, his virtue, like virtue generally, finally 
proved its own reward. One of the minks fur- 
tively poked his head out of the hole to take a sly 
look around. Of the same head nothing more was 



188 TROUTING ON THE BRULE. 

ever known, either by the mink or the man, "With- 
out any official report from Pratt, we knew the 
effect of the shot by the smell that was instantly 
wafted into all the noses in the camp. When the 
Indians skinned and dismembered the mink in a 
post 7nort6m examination, our sense of retributive 
justice was satisfied when a trout mess was found 
\\\ the villain's viscera. In the sunset, we made 
brief essay with the rods. It was a stirring time, 
and our lines were kept musically whizzing in a 
shower of casts, when the flies pattered like rain- 
drops. 



CHAPTER XY. 

THE DEAD-FALL — A PORCUPINE GOKMANDIZEK — TRIALS OF A 
TROUTER — PATIENCE AND NOT PROFANITY — LITTLE BRULE 
FALLS — DENISON's DOG — A THREATENED DUCKING — SUN- 
DAY AIRS — PRATT AND THE MINKS AGAIN — NEW CAMP — 
BOOT LAKES — KAQUOTASH's REMINISCENCES — A PINE RIVER 
BEAR ADVENTURE. 

The scliemes of Indians, as well as of men and 
mice, "gang aft aglee." Kaquotash's well-laid 
deadfall, Insciouslj set with trout, was a failure bv 
a large majority. Pratt's shot demoralized the 
minks, and, if they ventured out of their holes and 
hiding places, it was only on the sly, and the crafty 
stealers gave the snare a wide berth ; they were, 
doubtless, plethoric with a gorge of feasting on 
their pillage of the night before, and they could 
afford to turn up their cunning noses and wag tails 
of contempt at the solitary salmo fontinalis im- 
paled in the dead-fall. The early riser, though, 
surprised a happy porcupine squatted on the keel 
(189) 



190 TROUTING ON THE BRULE. 

of an upturned canoe, exercising his jaws in brows- 
ing on a packing strap; he had already gnawed it 
lamentably, and if not then caught in his cliew, 
would probably have devoured the whole leather. 
He made off and retreated with some alacrity, for 
one of his kind, up a tree. It was not with malice 
aforethought or in a mood of blood-thirstiness, but 
as a matter of strict justice that his life was made 
to pay the forfeit, though five revolver shots were 
required to give him a retributory quietus. 

' Unluckily Denison, while in a high tide of pros- 
perous angling, fractured his rod in two places. He 
preserved an exemplary degree of equanimity over 
the casualty. If any one thinks it is not a per- 
turbing contretemps^ or a strain on the temper, to 
snap a rod, or by a luckless fling to twine the 
hackle into a limb, or tangle and kink the oil-silk 
line, or foul it with the other fellows' line, or lose 
a leader, just when the sport is in full play and 
the trout are skipping and flurrying the liveliest, 
he knows but little of an angler's mishaps and of 
the trials and contingencies that await him. No 
one has more frequent occasion for the exercise of 
all Christianly patience and forbearance than each 
of the eager sportsmen in a canoe cracking whips 
of rod and line in a trout stream. 

It is a tolerably well disciplined temper that can 
steady itself evenly, and maintain composure and 
patience during a recurrence of such provoking 



SUMMER WAYFAEING. 



191 



casualties, and leave tlie troiiter unmoved, so tliat 
he can as " a man whose blood is warm within, 
sit like his grandsire cut in alabaster." A good 
many of his disciples may remember Walton's ad- 
vice to anglers —" Be patient, and forbear swear- 
ing, lest they be heard and catch no fish." The 
teaching is good, but it is not every one who has 
the grace to heed it. Denison, however, was guilt- 
less of imprecations, and, like a disarmed soldier, 
useless in the field, retired quietly to the rear. He 
and Pratt evinced both their skill and patience 
in tinkering up and mending the fractures; they did 
it so neatly and successfully, that they protested 
the rod was really better than before, and it seemed, 
in fact, to verify the claim, and I seriously doubted 
if I had not better smash my own rod, and let them 
make it, too, better than it was in its first estate. 

Eeluctantly we struck the tents and left Cedar 
Camp, the most pleasant of our green-wood homes. 
On the downward way, we halted at points to fish; 
the trout leaped briskly, and at more than one of 
the stoppages, we were busied to unhook the cap- 
tured. The sport was an embarrass du richesses of 
which the most ardent of the party began to tire. 
In the hour and a half of actual casting in these 
random exploits, a hundred and thirty were taken. 
Some of the trout are voracious; one that Pratt 
caught had been chewing a cud of fish, for a smaller 
one was in his throat not wholly swallowed. Along 



192 TEOUTING ON THE BRULE. 

a considerable stretch the trees, on both sides, 
seemed nearly all to have fallen or grown into or 
toward each other, across the stream, as if in a 
friendly embrace of limbs, and it was, sometimes, 
a close and nice operation for us to pass through 
and under the intertwining arches of rich foliage. 
This overreaching forest tapestry only partially 
sheltered us from the pourings of a heavy thunder 
shower, whose flying squadrons of cloud swept 
over us. 

When the massive columns of the storm had 
charged past, we laid in at Little Brule Falls, to 
dry and to dine. We were in the full reality of the 
piscatorial condition named in the proverb of a 
lisherman's luck — wet breeches and a hungry stom- 
ach. As if almost a work of magic, a camp tire 
was ablaze with many tongues of flame and curls 
of smoke, so that the evaporation of our costumes 
and the process for the dinner went well on apace. 
When the kettle bubbled and the trout were fried, 
we plied the cups and forks with a relish and a will 
few diners and lunchers in the city ever realize. 
We felt princely after resting and dining. Perhaps 
Denison was an exception to the general condition 
of beatitude; he seemed a shade pensive, possibly 
from reveries about Dick the dog in Minnesota, or 
perchance some object dearer, at Chicago or else- 
where. We had the customary early afternoon 
lounge. I enjoyed the situation simply by lying 



SUMMER WAYFARING. 193 

at rest, watching the quivering of the leaves, list- 
ening to the chattering of the red squirrels or the 
Inlline: music of the water foaming over the rocks. 

The falls, so-called, are an insignificant pitch of 
the river, a few feet over ledges of rock; they are 
something of precipitous rapids, rather than a cas- 
cade. Toward evening when the canoes were manned 
for fishing, the one carrying High and Denison, 
lurched into a swirl near the drop of the falls, and 
was nearly sucked under, shipped water consider- 
ably and seemed on the verge of swamping; but 
Paul was just quick and skillful enough, by a mas- 
terly handling of the pole, to poise and right her 
into equilibrium again and shove her out of peril. 
During the imminency of the catastrophe, the legal 
gentlemen were, evidently, for the moment, verte- 
brally affected with frigid sensations; they were, 
at least, threatened with a sousing bath, and their 
skins escaped drenching by just a hair-breadth ex- 
cess of good fortune. 

Along in the night, while we palefaces were, or 
should have been, sleeping and dreaming, the native 
Americans were having their own pleasantries in 
their tent. Their laugh and jabber told a tale of 
jovial good spirits, and waked unwonted echoes in 
the solemn cloisters of the woods; they enjoyed 
their part of the programme, not less than we en- 
joyed ours; their night's sleep is usually preluded 
with a merry pow-wow, and fun all to themselves. 
13 



194 TROUTING ON THE BRULE. 

"Whatever mascularity they have exerted during 
the day, either in packing over the carries, or navi- 
gating the flotilla, or doing varied utility business 
in the camp, there was alwaj^s time for their lively 
palaver and smoking, before " o'er their brows death 
counterfeiting sleep with leaden and batty wings 
did creep." Were we ever the theme of their jokes 
and pleasantries? We knew not. None but a phi- 
lologist, learned in the dialect of the Menominees, 
could tell. As Montaigne said about the playing 
"with the cat, who knows whether the cat was most 
amused at the man, or the man at the cat? Who of 
us could say if we were objects of more diversion 
to them than they appeared odd and amusing to us? 
However that may be, these invaluable red fellows, 
the primitive copperheads, had then been long 
enough in our service, and so thoroughl}^ in har- 
mony of will and spirit with us, that we consid- 
ered them admitted to full membership in our for- 
est brotherhood. 

In the matter of costume, our outfit for more 
than the simplest changes, bordered close on the vo- 
cative; the Sunday toilette was but slightly differ- 
ent from the secular raiment. For instance, Pratt 
made some pretension to style by scraping his beard 
to a closer stubble, and by a fresh collar to his neck. 
High wiped his lips with an unprecedented napkin 
at breakfast, and eftccted an innovation by turning 
the sleeve-cufls of his brown linen shirt out in full 



SUMMER WAYFARING. 195 

flow; Denison made a clean breast of it by button- 
ing his vest up to the throat. I took on a silk 
neckerchief knotted into a nondescript tie. These 
touches of the elegant were not particularly apt to 
inspire much pride of the flesh or lust of the eye, 
but symbolically or typically, they were just as good 
as if tip-top. 

We were tired of Little Brule Falls, and as a Sun- 
day work of charity to ourselves, packed up, loaded 
and embarked for ongoing. As downward meant, 
with Denison, Minnesota, dog and grouse, we were 
every mile nearing the place, and every hour near- 
ing the time of separation and of a break in our 
fraternal cohesion. The prospect of near disor- 
ganization imparted something of a serious tone, 
rather in harmony with Sabbath decorum. 

Yet, after all, the carpediem spirit was not want- 
ing. It moved Pratt to prove himself no excep- 
tion to the rule of appetite growing with what it 
feeds on. Having had a taste of blowing off a 
mink's bead, a mania for minks possessed him. He 
determined to lay in armed preparation for them 
as we passed the banks, on the way. He took the 
forward canoe, and had his gun in hand, well 
slugged for deadly work among the vermin, and 
kept a patient, keen lookout. Scarcely a twig 
rustled on either side, or a dark root 23rotruded, or 
a trout plunged, or a stir was heard in the bushes, 
that he was not ready to make prompt and short 



196 TROCJTING ON THE BRULE. 

work of it. And so we passed on and on, down 
smooth reaches, turning bends, past clumps and 
buslies, log drifts, shaded pools, twining roots, sandy 
strips of beach, and all places where minks might 
be expected. But his watching was unrewarded, 
and even his cardinal virtue of patience gave out, 
and his futile vigilance became tediously monoto- 
nous. Either because they kept to their holes on 
Sundays, or from an instinct of Pratt's hostile 
machination, it was certainly a bad day or an off- 
day fur minks. 

At noon we laid to on the Michigan side, to camp. 
Fronting the spot was a little island clothed with a 
mass of alders; on the opposite shore beyond it, 
was our camping place of 1875 — the head of the 
trail to Boot lakes. It is a low, marshy ground; 
but our new camping was now on a high, dry bank. 
It was overshadowed by the most umbrageous of 
forests; the bushes were soon cleared by the axe, 
and a convenient area of lawn-like smoothness was 
converted into a choice and pleasant tenting place. 
The canvass was set up; the kettle was hung; the 
frying pan told its tale of crisping and browning 
trout. The repast was grateful and needed. In 
the post-prandial divan on the grass, we put it in- 
to our pipes and smoked it how to make the after- 
noon available. A pilgrimage to Boot lake, or 
lakes rather, was hinted and then considered in a 
jpourparler of ^ros and cons. 



SUMMER WAYFARING. 197 

There are three of these lakes, with a liard port- 
age from the river to the nearest, and portages 
thence and between the others; but the question 
was settled, when it was known that there is a ru- 
mor of large trout in the further water, and the 
first lake is a noted resort for deer. The hearsay 
of the trout determined High, and the repute of 
the deer won Denison. The venture with the fly 
and the gun was therefore prepared for, and, as a 
stay over night was a necessity, an outfit of tent, 
commissary stores and canoe, was at once impro- 
vised. Thebault and Joe Dixon were the muscular 
auxiliaries and guides for the campaign. The four 
remaining signalized the start with a generous send- 
oif of good wishes and huzzas. 

As our supper had to be caught, Pratt and I took 
to the water to sway the rods awhile. Though we 
went not more than gunshot range from camp, the 
trout swarmed; the sport was exhilarating, and 
busied us to the extent of our capacity and exceed- 
ing the measure of our wishes. The capture figured 
up to ninety-three. The fish here, on the average, 
are smaller than the upper ones; but they make 
nearly as good sport, and are quite as savory for the 
meal as those taken above. 

Kaquotash was in an unusually social and gos- 
siping mood at night; his spirits enlivened into 
unwonted eflfervescence, and his volubility of speech, 
for an Indian, was something rare; his mind took 



198 TEOUTING ON THE BKULE. 

an autobiographical turn. While the fire-light 
flickered and played in his face, and, at times soft- 
ened or glowed on his swarthy features, his weird 
appearance, with his oddities of tongue, were a kind 
of sorcery which held us all willing and attentive 
subjects. Of course, the greater part of his life 
has been that of much forest wandering; he lias 
been something of a sailor, too, and vividly related 
the foundering condition of a propeller which ho 
piloted through a perilous Green Bay storm, finally 
into harbor. 

Some experiences as a Wisconsin cavalryman in 
Georgia, in the war, showed that David was no 
slouch of a soldier, and that he had had hair-breadth 
escapes by field as well as by flood; but his adven- 
tures in the woods were the most amusing and en- 
tertaining of his recollections. In the course of 
nearly thirty years he has been over and over all 
these northern wildernesses, with locators, prospect- 
ors, surveyors of lands, and with hunters and fish- 
ers, and also as a logger, so that he is an authority 
on topographical, navigating, sporting, cooking, 
camjjing matters, as well as thoroughly versed in 
the natural history of the wilds, and their fisli, 
flesh and fowl varieties. 

A story of a round with a bear, on Pine River, 
was related to us. He and a white man undertook 
to capture a couple of bear cubs they saw in a tree. 
The parent brute was off foraging, probably; but 



SUMMER WAYFARING. 199 

by way of precaution against a sudden return of 
the dam, they built a girdle of fire around as an in- 
tended barrier of safety. When it was well ablaze, 
and David was about to climb, the mother came 
madly rushing through the brush toward them; 
their only weapon of defense was an axe; with this 
in his hand, David retreated backward as fast as 
the circumstances and his Indian legs would allow; 
the enraged bear rapidly advanced; the pallid white 
man precipitated himself, with marvelous strides, 
to the river, and leaped into the canoe, shoving it 
out into the stream, far and fast as he could, leav- 
ing Kaquotash in the lurch, bawling loudly as he 
went: "Get aboard, Dave, get aboard!" 

By that time, the slie-bear reared up on her 
haunches to grapple the Indian in her fatal em- 
brace. Further backing was impossible. David 
stopped and stood his ground, with the axe drawn, 
looking the savage brute steadily in the eyes. The 
bear paused, too, motionless, for a few seconds, fixed 
by his moveless gaze, and then quailingly dropping 
on all fours, herself retreated, tail foremost to her 
cubs, and 

"Cow'd and subdued, fled from the face of man, 
Nor bore one glance of Iiis commanding eye." 



CHAPTEK KYI. 

CAMP OF 1875 — ARBOREAL INSCRIPTIONS— THE BOOT LAKE 
PARTY — FISH MARVELS— A BEAR THAT WAS A BUGBEAR — 
TROUT JUMPING AND FROLICS — COMMITTEE OP THE WHOLE 
— GOOD-BYE TO DENISON— MORE FISHING — AN AQUEOUS 
AFTERNOON. 

Peatt and I made a morning excursion with the 
canoe. "We paddled over to our camping ground 
of 1875. Tliere was very little of the genius loci 
to enthuse us. It was overgrown with weeds and 
grasses. It is a situation dismal enough. Some 
iconoclastic barbarian had rutlilesslj, with an axe, 
cliipped away the rude memorials we had inscribed 
on an unbarked surface of a tree to mark and com- 
memorate our abidin<>: there. 

These arboreal inscriptions are customary at 
camping points. They answer to the liotel register 
as memoranda of travel and sojourn, and, by comity 
of wayfarers in the woods, are considered as sacred- 
ly privileged from spoliation as the legends sculp- 
(200) 



SUMMER WAYFARING. 201 

tared on a grave-yard monument. The catches of 
fish are often arithmetically etched on these tree- 
tablets, and sometimes these, as also names and 
dates, are inscribed in rare vagaries of figures and 
writing. 

The little spring rill, which purely and coldly 
trickled, and which was the only satisfying natural 
feature of the place, was now choked up and liid- 
den by weeds. We recalled reminiscences of the 
spot, and then willingly turned our direction from 
it. We thence cruised down the stream, and skirm- 
islied here and there with the rods, and relieved the 
Brule of thirty-seven of its enamelled beauties; we 
skirmished about leisurely more for an airing than 
for sporting. Getting back to camp we found our 
pilgrims returned from their overland wandering; 
they had a good deal more to tell of than to show, 
for their digression to the lakes of Boot. All tliey 
brought in was a brace of partridges, the plump 
and glossy victims of Denison's gunning. 

They brought the recollections, not the carcass 
of a deer, seen in a safe perspective of distance, 
which the deer was wary and witting enough to 
keep from being foreshortened; they had portaged 
over the canoe for a night hunt with the lantern; 
they coasted the curving borders of the lake, steal- 
ing noiselessly through the tall grasses in the shal- 
lows, or cutting a swathe among the lily pads, or 
skimming gently over the still clear water, with the 



202 TROUTING ON THE BRULE. 

glare of the light casting a glittering refulgence 
ahead, they themselves and their canoe thrown in 
shadow and concealment. 

But there was no sight or sound of a deer, no 
rustle in the bushes, and no stir in the water. The 
night hunt was a failure; though that was not sin- 
gular, and not at all unexpected. The night was 
bright; Luna had put on her brightest face, such 
as that with which she shone loveliest to meet and 
woo her Endymion alone on the mountain and en- 
circle him in her golden halo; there was no playing 
or laying a successful ambuscade in the streaming 
rays of the moon; consequently, Denison's venison, 
which was to garnish our refections, was only moon- 
*shine. 

The stories they told of the bass, in the further 
lake, were those of icthyological wonders; the water 
was clear as crystal, and the lake a natural aquari- 
um, with transparency enough to reveal the thick 
shoals of fish disporting beneath; they were seen 
fearlessly swimming in hordes; the place is stocked 
W'itli them, as if there was no limit to their indefi- 
nite spawning and propagation; they darted about 
at random, without fear of foes or danger on the 
surface. The lake is seldom visited; an angler who 
can have his utmost fill of sport, that wliicli is the 
superlative of all sport, in abundance, at least, on 
the Brule, is scarcely apt to venture the trying or- 
deal of the rongh trails over there, to squander time 



SUMMEK WAYFARING. 203 

in the muscular exertion of heavy pulling and drag- 
ging out which bass fishing is. So the Boot lake 
bass are not decimated or thinned out by fishers. 
Our party took thirty or more of them, mainly by 
trollino^. 

High was heedless enough to try his delicate 
trout rod, and one of the heavy weights nipped his 
fly, and the tng was so strong that his slender tip 
snapped like a pipe-stem. Denison dropped in a 
spoon, with a flaming red pendant, and dangled it 
near the surface and said that a concourse of all- 
sized bass loomed up in a circle around it, and 
poised there on their fins, a sort of wondering, gap- 
ing throng around his glaring bob. As a Master in 
Chancery, who swears others to tell the truth, ought 
himself to be truthful, we accepted this relation 
as truth and nothing but the truth; though a con- 
siderable story of fish, it was not, he afiirmed, a 
fish story. The fish they canght would weigh from 
five pounds down to one; they soon tired of their 
miraculous draught of fishes, went ashore, and, like 
Arabs, silently folded their tent and stole wonder- 
ingly away. 

There was a bear incident, also, at Boot lake, or 
bug-bear, or, only the bare imagination of a bear, 
and not a real bruin. In trailing to the lake, the 
party straggled on in Indian file, with Denison in 
the van. High, Thebault and Dixon bringing up 
the rear, at intervals; Frank then came suddenly to 



204 TKOTJTING ON THE BRULE. 

a dead halt, and excitedly reported " A bear! a bear!" 
It was not told to ns whether the hair electri- 
call}^ lified on the scalps of the hunter and fisher; 
but, with rare presence of mind, under alarming 
circumstances, thej discreetly abstained from a bold 
headlong dash, or instant onset on the dangerous 
enemy, and prudently waited the reinforcement of 
the experienced bear-slayers from the rear. "Where? 
where?" inquired Thebault and Dixon, looking 
grave, as they always do, when there is serious busi- 
ness on hand or foot, each cautiously scanning, on 
tip-toe, the direction pointed out by Denison. 

When Denison succeeded in at length directing 
the Indian's vision point blank to the supposed bear, 
the natives simultaneously burst into a roar uf 
laughter; of course, this completely demoralized 
and confounded the Chicago barristers. The Indi- 
ans declared that the "-bear was a porcupine!" and 
really, the savage bear of an unmitigated optical 
illusion was, after all, a bugaboo of a porcupine, of 
most harmless proj)ensities, peacefully sunning 
itself on a charred stump! 

" Such tricks hath strong imagination, 
* * * * imagining some fear, 
How easy is a bush suppos'd a bear." 

This ursine hallucination was one of the wonders 
of the Boot lake expedition about which our bam- 
boozled comrades were not inclined to indulire in 
any sounding manifestoes. 



SUMMER WAYFARING. 205 

Pratt and myself struck a choice trout lead, 
which we worked beautifully. The activities of the 
brilliant leapers were most varied in their displays; 
they almost literally flew about as if their fins for wa- 
ter were as well wings for the air. Sometimes the 
high-flyers, as if in play themselves, or as if striv- 
ing in a grab or snatching match, would leap at once 
for the same fly. One of tliem vaulted over a log, 
as neatly as an expert tumbler would turn a bar; 
another would skip ducks and drakes along, bob- 
bing in and out. This was all rather a comical 
piscatory pleasantry to us. David told us that the 
trout, going up creeks and small streams, make no 
bones of tossing over logs, and said he had seen a 
trout throw himself up over Brule Falls, a good three 
feet jump. Seeing and hearing these gymnastical 
feats, I am not sure that it would have greatly sur- 
prised us to see a trout climbing a tree! It cer- 
tainly would not have been wonderful for one to 
have flirted into the canoe. There is no end to the 
freaks of the volatile imps. 

In the golden sunset, we meandered the twisting 
thread of the river back to the camp, cutting with 
the prow the silvery surface into ripples triangula- 
ting oflf to tlie edges, and swaying the grasses and 
the dipping leafage into waving motion. As the 
last faint red tinges of the sky faded into twilight, 
we reached the grassy quay of the camp-ground. 
That night, after the meal, when the pipes were 



206 TROITTING ON THE BRULE. 

suffusing, and after the drowsy autochthones had 
retired, the Chicago party resolved itself into a 
committee of the wJiole. 

Denison and his outset for Minnesota were' the 
special order of the day, and the subject of inter- 
pellation and debate. The fever for that remote 
promise-land of grouse was now a furor too imper- 
ative to be stayed or repressed. The rush of dog 
to the head must, we saw, inevitably lead to his 
taking off. And so Dick, off towards the north 
star, was too much for us all. We were ready to 
pronounce on the blameless cur, Liunce's outlawry 
declared against the misbehaving Crab: "Out with 
the dog! " " Whip him out! " " Hang him up! ■' 
As the only mode of outgo was by canoe, the leav- 
ing would require a withdrawal of half the party, 
and a moiety of the equipment. Pratt volunteered 
to be his companion, though' it was only a perfunc- 
tory assent given — a necessity more than a choice. 
It was left to the Indian contingent to settle for 
itself which of the guides should attend Denison. 
AVhen so much of the programme was settled, it 
was late, and the committee rose, and having, like 
Bottom, " an exposition of sleep come upon " us, 
we took to the reposeful blankets, leaving the 
sweet sorrow of the parting for the rosy early hours 
of day. 

Chickabiddy Camp, in the morning, was early 
and busily astir, for a goodly and timely starting 



SUMMER WAYFARING. 207 

and send-off of our parting comrades. Of course, 
we collect! velj felt, for the first time on the trip, 
emotions of regret as the time was come to word 
the farewell with the lips. In the boundless and 
overpowering presence and solitude of nature, our 
intimacy had grown so close, warm, united and 
sympathetic, that near fellowship became warm 
fraternity. Parting would be a break in our unity 
and community of spirit, and, though some of us 
should meet again in the city, our paths then would 
be too diverse, and our several preoccupations too 
varied to admit of the union into one continuing 
common mood and mind like that of the woods, 
where " the electric chain wherewith we are darkly 
bound " kept us constantly and vividly en rapjyort. 
We felt something of this on the eve of the dissolu- 
tion. It was not embodied in lip-language. 

In fact we rather affected facetiousness. But the 
mirth was like that sometimes intended to mask 
solemnity. It was not the real mirth that makes 
the side ache, and soothes away the hurt of heart- 
ache. Our jokes were too weighty to be witty. 
"With them all there was one word we were loth to 
speak, that should be kept back to the last — " good- 
bye." We had found we were such good and right 
companions to be together, we felt we ought to 
keep the companionship unbroken to the end. And 
so, when the time came for us to loosen the silver 
chord, and sever our entirety into parting compa- 



208 TKOIJTING ON THE BEULE. 

nies, we knew, those hasting and those loitering, 
that there would be an emotion deeper, truer and 
warmer than is found in a common-place adieu. 

The guides shared these feelings. They were 
averse to breaking np. Neither of them wanted 
to be of the returning portion of the party. Which 
it should be at the last only was settled, as between 
David and Thebault, by casting lots; and it was the 
long twig drawn by Kaquotash that fated him to go. 
Shortly after eight o'clock, everything and every- 
body were ready, and the order " all aboard," given 
by Denison, signalled the last moment. The pres- 
sure of hands in the adieu was warm. And then 
in their birchen shell, the Tom King, Denison and 
David, Pratt and Joe Dixon, glided away in the 
distance. High and I recurred to the passage in 
Walton of the parting of Piscator and his companion, 
and applied his words on our occasion: " We are 
loth to part with you now, but when you tell us 
you must go, we will then wait upon you with our 
thoughts, all the miles of your way, and heartily 
wish you a good journey." For the kindly and 
thoughtful David Kaquotash, who had so well 
served us and so much attached us, he of the native 
and we of the foreign race and language, we uttered 
a fervent " God bless you ! " We will wear in our 
hearts his living memory. Our aspiration was, 
may he live long and prosper, and when he dies 
may he go to the place where the good Indians go. 



SUMMER WAYFARING. 209 

We tlionglit the fitting thing by way of relief 
against the present sense of tlie loneliness and 
vacancy of the camp, was to divert our thoughts 
from it and our friends to the fish. To that end, 
we arranged the tackle in its best trim, and set- 
ting out on the Brule, radiant in the glow of the 
morning, the birch bark we sat in, like Cleopatra's 
barge on the river of Cydnus, " a burnished throne, 
burned on the water," so glaring, at starting, was the 
dazzle of the sun. 

We crept along the winding of the stream, from 
pool to pool, or through frotliy shallows, or into a 
shadowed nook, or breasted the rapids, and also 
fluno; out at random while in transit. Durinoj the 
two or three hours of the coursing w^e caught only 
forty-five trout, but did catch a very brief, sudden, 
refreshing shower, from a single cloud that a way- 
ward impromptu gust swept over us. On Sunday 
and the day following, the heat was something of 
the tropics, and at night we dispensed witli the 
illumining and warming from the usual pine ingle- 
side of the camp, and very comfortably enjoyed our 
last meerschaums before bedtime, in the midsum- 
mer night scene in shirt-sleeves. This balminess 
of the night hours, however, was a rarity and fit- 
fulness of temperature. In this camp, and as if 
spawned or vitalized by the warmth, the house- 
flies plagued us fiendishly, more tormentingly than 
the mosquitoes or midgets. 
14 



210 TROUTING ON THE BRULE. 

The afternoon sport was dashed bj^ rain, which 
fell copiously from serried cohorts of cloud that 
swept up, charging fiercely from the west. Part of 
the time it subsided into a glimmer or a mist of 
rain, and again showered heavily, so that we were 
embargoed by the elements into indoor listlessness. 
Looking out of the open flap of the tent, the pros- 
pect was dreary enough. The rain drops dotted 
and pimpled the stream thickly. They pelted and 
■ spluttered in the camp fire, and clipped its flames, 
* and plumped and dully thudded among the embers 
and in the ashes, and the tongues of the blazes 
hissed and sizzled angrily in the strife of fire and 
w^ater. The pines and firs dripped ceaselessly. 
The sky was leaden and sullen. Thebault and Paul 
took their enforced seclusion with the most happy 
go-lucky composure, laboriously whifling their 
pipes and indolently sprawling on the blankets in 
their tent. 

Against the outer dreariness and the inner mono- 
tony we fell back on our literature for relief. In 
his consuming thirst for information al)out that 
"Mysterious Island" of Jules Verne, and between 
the book and his pipe. High forgot, possiblj^, the 
clouds, the rain, the dullness, the general discomfort 
of the occasion. I turned the pages of honest 
Walton, and folloM'ing his footsteps on the banks 
of the river Lea, for the time was unmindful of the 
very Brule at our feet, and, in those charming dis- 



SUMMER WAYFARING. 211 

conrsings which have made the " Complete Ang- 
ler" forever a lovable classic in our language, 
renewed some of those sweet spells which fascinated 
me in earlier years. We had time, too, to speak 
of our away-gone friends, and of course we missed 
Denison's restless volatility . 

Some of Denison's equipment we could willingly 
afford to part withal. One familiar object, whose 
room was greatly preferred to its company, was his 
portable powder magazine, which he called an ammu- 
nition case. This twenty-five pound locker of deadly 
missiles was generally lying around in the tent for 
us to stumble our toes against, or to menace some, 
or all of us, with an explosive hoist, to the "demni- 
tion bow-wows." It was about as safe and cheerful 
a companion to have around as a torpedo or a carboy 
of dynamite, when lighted meerschaums were so 
freely swung around, and the sparks, like whirling 
myriads of fire-flies, were flying in showers from 
our breakfast fires, dinner fires, supper fires, and 
our morning and evening tent fires. That ammu- 
nition case must have been the terror of the men, 
if for no other reason than that of its being a 
heavy dorsal strain on every Indian whose unhappy 
fate it was to lug it on the portages. The fixed 
ammunition, as he termed his cartridges, never was 
fixed, apparently, as he seemed constantly fixing it. 
He handled it freely, as a child would play its rat- 
tles and baubles. His case was opened as often as 



212 TROIJTING ON THE BRULE. 

the valise tliat held his novels, l^obody could tell 
when an ill-governed or wayward spark might be 
the means of blowing up the camp, and all who 
dwelt therein. He aj^peared to think his explo- 
sives had a useful disciplinary purpose in school- 
ing us to sleepless vigilance and caution. 

He spread out a two -pound package of powder 
on a newspaper on the grass in front of the tent, to 
dry in the sun. He emphatically warned me to be 
.careful about smoking, as I might drop a spark in 
his powder, and blow up the entire stock and spoil 
his shooting. The admonition, certainly, was so 
apt and timely, and so well meant for the safety of 
the powder, if not of myself, that I felt grateful for 
his cautionary kindness, and was rather inclined to 
consider him my benefactor. In looking around 
for marks to shoot at, he discovered a wasp's nest 
suspended from a limb of a tree near the tent. He 
thought that, by right of discovery, he was privi- 
leged to deal with it in his own way, and that was 
to shatter it into flinders with his revolver. It was 
all I could do to keep him from blowing it into 
fragments and setting loose on ns the whole swarm 
of infuriated w^asps, to make it hot and lively 
around the camp. He seemed to regard the obnox- 
ious vespiary as a hanging provocation or challenge 
for his revolver marksmanship. Sitting under or 
near it, he was uneasy and perturbed, like Damocles 
beneath the suspended sword at the Dyonisian feast. 



SUMMER WAYFAKING. 213 

I am not sure that he forgave, or ever will quite 
forgive me for thwarting him of the ecstacy of 
demolishing that wasp's nest into everlasting atoms. 
At twilight the rain increased, and it was by a 
bare excess of the chances that the kitchen fire was 
not squelched, and we were not sent supperless to 
bed. By chipping and splintering dry pine, chopped 
from the under sides of logs, the Indians found 
just enough fuel to keep combustion alive; and 
though the drops pattered on the kettle, the water 
within at last boiled into a bubbling song of tea. 
The fire for our tent drowned out, and the night 
darkness and dampness crept on us. The gloom 
within was made more conspicuous by the weak, 
uncertain flare of the lantern suspended. To shut 
out the utter dismalness of the outside, and to close 
ourselves in, the flaps of the tent were drawn to- 
gether, the tallow dip, our flickering glim, was put 
out, and, in the blankets, we gradually soothed 
away and lost the miseries of the situation in sleep. 



CHAPTER XVII. 

SKIEMISHING FOE FISH — A RED TROUT — CRASSUS THE ROMAN 
— A RARE DISH — RIVER RISE — ECCENTRIC FREAKS OF FISH 
— A LUNAR EFFECT — THE SAW-BILIiS— RED SQUIRRELS — IN- 
DIANS TROUTING — A COLOSSAL TROUT — HIGH, THE CHAMP- 
ION ANGLER. 

The clouds that lowered on our house the last 
night, were in the deep bosom of the ocean buried. 
In the morning we woke to a very resplendence of 
sunshine; the azure was without even the fleck*^of 
a cloud ; the green of the forest was a deeper em- 
erald ; the air was pure and laden with the odors 
of balsam. We were in the best of spirits, though 
we missed some of the boisterous fun or chaffing 
with which we had been wont to welcome in the 
jocund morn. We wished Pratt and Denison were 
with us for our and their own longer pleasure in 
the sports of the Brule. After the first order of 
the day, the breakfast, was disposed of, the business 
next in order was proceeded with. The splendid 
(214) 



SUMMER WAYFARING. 215 

morning incited us to an excursion on tlie river, 
now, after the gloom and sulleness of the previous 
day, more than ever attractive in its fulhiess of 
summer glories. 

"Now let {lie fislierman liis toils prepare, 
And arm himself with ev'ry wat'ry snare; 
His hooks, his lines peruse with careful eye, 
Increase his tackle, and his rod re-tie." 

It needed all Paul's exertions to pnsh the craft 
up the stiif currents swollen witli the rains. At 
times, it was heaving ahead very slowly. At vari- 
ous pools, where we held awhile, we most prosper- 
ously whipped the stream. Our concern was, not 
to hover where the trout swarmed most abundantly, 
bnt to iind the haunts of the largest. The small 
fry could be plenteously caught in nearly any place 
of the river; but the heavy swells, more shy and 
wary, frequent under a bank where the water runs 
close up and deep, or under logs, or in deep pools 
or holes, or at or under the rapids, or in the depths 
of the channel, or in the swirl below a large boulder. 
They are more coy than the troutlings, and some- 
times must be coaxed and tickled with a delicate 
and cautious dalliance. ' 

We happened on some of these haunts of the 
choice fish. Right gallantly did they show the 
gamesome stuff of which they were made. There 
was agitation in the waters when they stretched a 
line and bent a tip. I envied High the repeated 



216 TEOUTING ON THE ERULE. 

onset and final capture of one particular trout, 
splendid in liis mettle and dash, and in his propor- 
tions and unequalled beauty. On his first charge 
at the fly, he appeared, in the clear water, a flash 
of deep, red flame, so brilliant was he in his em- 
blazonry; but he was not then taken. On the next 
cast he pitched at the fly as it touched the water. 
We thought him taken, and saw liiin wavering in- 
sliape of red as he was being played in; but, after 
all, he flouted ofl" and we thought him gone forever. 
But fate had set its seal on him; on a third imme- 
diate cast, he came boldly to the snatch again, and 
then he was firmly struck. 

How slowly, carefully and skillfully High han- 
dled his rod so as to save his gallant, struggling 
prize. When he was being drawn in, fluttering 
and writhing, he appeared to us as if reddened in 
his own blood. He fought gamely to the last. 
When brought in and unhooked, each of us took 
him, by turns, and handled him tenderly, and with 
wonder and admiration at his beauty. He was the 
sole one of the kind we had ever seen taken from 
the Brule. He was peerless in size as he was in 
brilliancy. The tail, fins and belly Avere of deepest 
red. The specks were unusually defined and high 
colored, and the skin was finely empearled and per- 
fect. We all regretted that he could not be kept 
alive or preserved to be taken home as a wonder. 
He would be a marvel of beauty in a parlor aqua- 
rium or fish irlobe. 



SUMMER WAYFARING. 217 

He was a paragon of a trout, handsome enoii<vli 
to be kept and fondled as a pet, as was the lamprey 
of Crassns, the orator, which would come at his 
call and feed from his hand. That eminent Roman 
forensic gentleman wept when his fondling of the 
pond died. His tears occasioned a repartee of his, 
which vElian has been thoughtful enough to pre- 
serve, and which shows that it was a great point 
with the lawyers of the Roman, as it is with those 
of the modern forum, to have the last word, ^no- 
barbus was the colleague of the orator in the cen- 
sorship, and foolhardily ventured to twit his brother 
official on his puling and sobbing over a defnnct 
fish. The legal wit retorted that it was not for 
Domitius ^nobarbus to taunt Licinius Crassus 
with bewailing anything, since the same Domitius 
had buried three wives without rending his toga or 
tearing his beard, and without a single tear or 
whimper at the funeral of either demised consort, 
or words to that effect. As the historian has not 
reported a reply, it is to be presumed that the wid- 
owered Roman silently withered. 

As a dernier resort^ and the only one, the beauty- 
trout was handed over to the cook for his profes- 
sional treatment. It was served at our table cV hote, 
and, at High's special instance, fell to my platter. 
Beneath his crisp and embrowned coat of mail, the 
tender flakes were delicate and sweet, and of the 
deepest pink sahnon tinge, and were as choice to 



218 TROUTING ON THE BKULE. 

eat as fair to look upon. It was a dainty dish, of 
which it could be* said, as Walton says of a service 
of fish described by him, it was " too good for any 
body but anglers and very honest men." 

In the afternoon, and after our customarj^ lounge 
in the shade, we put off for further essaying w^ith 
the fly. The rain of the night before, by that time, 
liad swollen the river more voluminously so that 
it ran swiftly smooth over ordinary shallows. It 
was all channel. The canoe could float about any- 
where, and we could strike trout around about us 
nearly everywhere. Just at the camp, too, we could 
take them. At the rapids lower down, where t*ratt 
and I had fortuned on a paying lead, as the miners 
say,' we failed to get a rise, probably because the water 
swept too turbulentl3\ This convinced us, what 
indeed, was believed before, that the fish are wander- 
ing, and do not shoal in pools when there is water- 
way to swim them freely at large. In the Brule 
at its full stream, the trout are wanderers — here to- 
day, and to-morrow elsewhere. 

We saw some of their amusing freaks again; one 
voracious fellow vaulted over a log to snatch a 
fascinating, new, glossy fly that High had thrown, 
and did tackle it, but paid dearly for the leap, for 
he was captured, and was plump enough to be laid 
by as a choice morsel for the pan. Another trout 
skipped horizontally, at least two feet along, barely 
above and in line with the surface, and then frisked 



SUMMER WAYFARING. 219 

out sideways and dropped back flat into the water 
laterally. These antics rather" amazed and much 
amused us. The figures of the day were one hun- 
dred and sixty-five. 

I got up in the night to close the flaps of the 
tent, and witnessed a striking hmar effect. Fog 
was dense over the river. Tlie moon, directly op- 
posite to, or fronting the camp, shone lustrously; 
a narrow pathway of illuminated golden haze 
stretched from the brink, at our feet, in rising per- 
spective, up to the face of the moon. Early in the 
morning, when the glories of the coming day were 
glimmering the east into the hues of dawn, the flock 
of saw-bills that ill-omened our Michigami voy- 
age, or sume others of the nefarious family, were 
heard quacking and seen paddling in the very pur- 
view of the camp. One of the boys rising from 
his snore frightened them, and as usual they bois- 
terously scattered in terror. 

There was a settlement of small red squirrels 
around us. They were very nimble, and the trees 
near by were noisy witli tlieir lively chattering. 
Tliey ventured occasionally on the trees overhanging 
the camp. One of them capered neatly on alder 
bushes within twenty feet of us, bending down 
slender branches, swinging from one to another, 
swaj'ing on twigs, rattling the leaves, and whisking 
his tail. 'We saw several of them chasing, one 
after another, in ajumpingrace, on logs, squeaking 



220 TROUTING ON THE BRULE. 

sharply as they went. There were small birds, like 
sparrows, flitting among the bushes in hide-and-go- 
seek playfulness, twittering little trills. 

A chipmunk sometimes came, and stopped on a 
log to take a look at us. Occasionally the croak of a 
raven, or the moan of a loon high flying, the rat- 
tat of a sapsucker, or the pecking of a woodpecker, 
or the jerking notes of a jaybird, and some other 
notes not familiar to us, were heard, and proved 
that bird-life is more varied and abundant here 
than on the Michigami; but even here the feath- 
ered choristers were not, either in number or va- 
riety, what would be expected in such a grand old 
wilderness. High was thoughtful enough of the 
better-half serving the household gods at home, 
to gather and press for her in the leaves of a Jules 
Verne extravaganza, some of the choicest of the 
ferns, which mantled the ground near by with a liv- 
ery of vivid green. 

We ourselves prompted Thebault and Paul to 
experiment their Indian skill in a match with the 
trout. Whether or not they would be successful 
with the fly and our more delicate appliances, who 
had only occasionally fronted, and then, with ruder 
line, and rod fashioned from a branch and with 
bait, was a problem they themselves had no experi- 
ence froin which to forecast results at starting. We 
committed to them our rig, and they canoed up- 
wardly, and, in their venture, wielded the rods so 



SUMMER WAYFAEING. 221 

much to the purpose, in their dalliance with the fish, 
as to return to us with flying colors and with fiftj- 
three trout, news of which they proudly hailed to 
us as they rounded to the mooring. "Whether this, 
their first foraging the river, had edged their appe- 
tites more sharply, or whether they had a special 
relish because the spoils were of their own capture, 
we did not know, but certainly they bountifully 
served themselves and repeated more than their 
usual courses of the fry. 

After dinner, we set out again to fish. From 
some whim or caprice, in qnest of novelty, and to 
variegate our bearings, we pushed into untried 
inlets, unexplored nooks and unknown chutes. We 
tried one or two openings into the stream, which 
in short time we found to be culs de sac of water 
in which we were entrapped, and were obliged 
to turn about and retrace our course. Within a 
short distance of the camp there are numerous 
little islands, with threads of stream tangling and 
winding about them, Yenetian-like petty lagoons. 
Into one of these. High's prying curiosity prompted 
a venture; after we ascended some distance from the 
entrance, it so narrowed and crooked, the foliage so 
overstretched it, the snags, sunken brush and fallen 
timber so obstructed the passage, that it was hard 
to force the birch-bark on, though Paul struggled 
manfully. But we had pressed on so far that to 
return were as tedious as to go on. We determined 
to crowd ahead to the main stream 



222 TKOUTING ON THE BKULE. 

A few piislies further, at a point where seemingh'' 
there was no promise of a fish of anj size, High 
instinctively caught sight of a narrow, dark strip 
of water, close under a shore, embanked bj a dense 
luxuriance of alders, and carefully laid in his fly, 
on a short piece of line. It was, except to an eye 
of faith, a forlorn hope of a place. There was no 
space for two to cast. But the cliance dip of the 
fly proved, by a rise, that the hidden spot might be 
a lair of trout. The hint was followed up, and its 
promise was followed too, by splendid performance. 

Again casting his fly at the very shore-line in 
the dark strip, its touch on the water was one as 
of magic, and proved to be the master-stroke of 
all Brule fly-fishing. He had struck a trout that 
tried his tackle and his skill. His rod curved, the 
reel buzzed, and the line spun out taut down stream. 
To prevent the fish from loosening, or from foul- 
ing the line in the brush and logs, was the critical 
and turning point. Gay must have had, or seen a 
similar match with a trout, as in his " Rural 
Sports," he foreshadows High in what was nearly 
literally a brush with the Brule trout, diflering 
only in the mightiness of the bulk and unfolded 
length. As thus — 

Now hope exalts the fisher's beating heart; 
Now he turns pale and fears his dubious art; 
He views the trembling fish with lonigng eyes, 
While the line stretches with th' unwieldy prize; 



SUMMER WAYFARING. 223 

Each motion humors with his steady hands, 
And one slight hair the mighty bulk commands; 
Till tired at last, despoiled of all his strength 
The game athwart the stream unfolds his length. 

Paul aiicl I anxiously watched the gallant tour- 
ney, and were one in admiration over the prize. It 
was the leviathan or monarch trout of the Brule — 
larger than any known to, or heard of by any of us 
taken on this river. We could fairly weight him 
at two pounds. The average of the larger trout 
taken in this river, or by us, was probably not 
over fourteen ounces. High was tickled almost 
into boyish exhilaration at his capture. What a 
volley of admiring exclamations he uttered! What 
a serene expression and halo of smiles he wore; how 
often he spoke of him, and how many times he 
opened the basket to be sure he was there, as though, 
like Falstaff chuckling over the fallen Percy, he so- 
liloquized: "What if he should rise again?" and 
renew the fight anon, I cannot undertake to note. 
I know he said that he felt better on the taking of 
the trout than if he had taken a successful verdict 
in a Chicago law suit; 

'"And all the day an unaccustomed spirit 

Lifts him above the ground with cheerful thoughts.'" 

This will be the red-letter day in High's calendar 
of Brule troutino;. The rest of the ano-lino; was 
rather tame to him. Thono^h the fish we afterwards 
took were considerably above the average, they 



224 TROUTING ON THE BRULE. 

seemed to liim, after the splendid trout coiijp de 
grace^ rather puny. The peerless one took the dash 
out of his ambition. In fact, our sport, in weight 
and number, was so good that he said that, for once, 
he had had all the trouting he wanted, Avhich, for an 
irrepressible enthusiast of flj-fishing, as he is, was 
a rare confession. We took one hundred and fifty, 
but returned most of them to the river again. The 
day was the finest in breeze and sunshine, the eve- 
ning was cool and still, the unclouded moonlight 
tinged all the landscape in yellow glow. We felt 
genial as the warmth of the log-fire and bright as 
its flames, and were as placid and blissful as if 
everything was, and would remain, as serene as the 
night. 



CHAPTER XYIIL 

CHICKABIDDY CAMP — HARPING ON THE TROUT— RI"\^R RE- 
CEDING — A FAWN AND A BUCK — CHANGE IN THE BRULE — 
— CAMP THEBAULT — THE TOTAL FIGURES — LOGMAN's CAMP 
— THE MICHIGAMI — WEAWBINTKET's CABIN— PAUL MIL- 
LER'S — BIG QUINISECK FALLS. 

TiiEBAULT thought, perhaps, a day as propitious 
as that which saw the killing of the splendid trout, 
should be crowned with more than wonted comfort 
for the night, so he hewed down a towering hem- 
lock standing near the camp, and despoiled it of a 
wealth of boughs to make us a fresh and frao^rant 
spread for sleeping. These made a couch as much 
to our ease, if not quite as soft, as feathers could 
make. 

The balmy sleep; which was there our tired nature's 
sweet restorer was deep as the slumber of infancy 
in the cradle. No one so well knows what it is to 
sleep in peace and wake in joy, as well as to have 
good digestion wait on appetite, and health on both 
15 (225) 



226 TROUTING ON THE BRULE. 

— where appetite is ever under the spur or on edge 
— as tlie roainer in this forest realm of nature, of 
solitude and of calm. 

Enamored of our camping place, we had thought 
to make there a longer stay; but the water-rise 
was running out rapidly, and the trout would be 
less scattered and broadcast. Besides, it was 
reported that certain of the stores were exhausted, 
and others were depleting rapidly. The prospect of 
famine had expedited the return on the first trip. 
As we were now cloyed with excess of sport, and of 
satiety "a little more than a little is much too 
much," we would be making no great sacrifice in 
emigrating from Chickabiddy Camp. 

High was still harping on his notable trout. I 
do not know what his war record is, but I doubt if 
an}^ single event of it, in the field, on the march or in 
camp, will be a more satisfying recollection to him 
tlian that of his conquest of the mammoth trout. Of 
course, compared with the three, four or five pound 
trout, or salmon trout which he himself had captured 
Irom Rocky Mountain streams, the Brule captive 
would be dwarfed and overshadowed; but here, 
where the scale is reduced, and the fish make up in 
dash, gameness, beauty and delicacy, what they lack 
in dimensions and weight, to have proved himself 
the unrivaled master of the rod, with an unmatched 
marvel of its kind for a trophy, M^as indeed a feat and 
good fortune worth emblazoning on his piscatorial 
escutcheon. 



SUMMER WAYFARING. 227 

His superb tront, however, fried, and in a crust 
of brown, was served in a breakfast mess. And, 
much of a trout gourmet as he is, High had all he 
could do to get awav with it. He exercised his jaws 
with a gusto and with a labor of love in disposing of 
the rich, delicate, creamy flakes, akin to those of the 
stomach attributed to a hungry Feejee epicure for a 
missionary tid-bit. I could not muster assurance 
enough to accept the slice of it offered to me. After 
rising from the feast, he felt that he had, indeed, ban- 
queted, and that he conld now, like the Tartar khan 
after his repast on the sumptuous horse-flesh and 
mare's milk, flourish the trumpet and proclaim that 
all the rest of the world could go now to grub. 

Almost as quickly as the shifting of a gypsy en- 
campment scene from the stage, in a drama, onr 
canvas domicile and the paraphernalia of the camp 
were transposed from the woodland to the canoe. 
Blackened logs half burned, charred chunks, heaps 
of ashes, strips of birch bark, a mixed rubbish of 
trout heads, fins and skeletons, potato skins, a drift 
of hemlock boughs, scraps of paper, lithographed 
tobacco labels, and other minor refuse, were all the 
vestiges left to testify of our recent homestead. 

About eight o'clock we tucked ourselves in the 
canoe, and, without much ado, bade a somewhat 
regretful adieu to Chickabiddy Camp. The christen- 
ing of the spot with that name was a chance freak 
of caprice merely, but a memory of the place and of 



228 TKOUTING ON THE BEULE. 

our four days' life there will survive long in the 
future of our several recollections. A half-mile 
below it, we saw a handsome fawn, with its coat of 
many spots, standing fixed and still at the mouth of 
a petty rill. It certainly did not have its eye-teeth 
cut, or it would not have stood there, within range, 
a tempting mark for a deadly shot. But we were 
abreast of it, or slightly below, when it was discov- 
ered, and before Thebault had fumbled his pocket 
and found a cap and got the rifle well in hand, the 
rapid current had swe]3t us furtherward, and dis- 
tance had made it safe. The crack of the gun sent 
the startled fawn bounding, but unharmed, out of 
sight. 

There had been so much trout and so great 
deficit of deer since we left the Michigami, that such 
a sight brought imaginary flavors of venison to our 
lips, and we longed for a real haunch. "While our 
birch was sliding easily along, and our thoughts were 
yet, possibly, brooding over the evanescent fawn, 
Thebault, the far-seer, discerned and pointed to us 
another statuesque object, a large-horned buck, cool- 
ing himself in the stream, and there 

"With his imperial front, 
Shaggy and bold, and wreathed hoi'ns superb, 
The breathing creature stood." 

He was too far for Thebault's rifle, and caught 
sight of us too soon to admit of any stealth or strat- 
egy being played on him by the rifleman. Still, 



SUMMER WAYFAEING. 229 

Tliebault determined to give him a scare. "When 
the deer turned for the bushes, the gmi was shot, 
and the terrorized buck plunged and tore the water 
wide open in his panic haste to set his hoofs on 
shore. 

On the advance, the rods were plied in such 
reaches, below such rapids, and behind such rock 
or boulder masses, as promised immediate results; 
and these brief snatches of angling were sufficient 
to furnish us an ample dinner and supper supply. 
In these passings, which were nearing us to the 
mouth of the river, we scarcely recognized the Brule 
we voyaged in 1875. Then, a primitive density of 
forest bordered, and unbroken solitude brooded over 
the shores to the very mouth. Since then, the log- 
man's axe has been diligent in clearing spaces in 
the wood, and the massive foliage that crowned the 
close towering pines, in whose shadows and silence 
the river of trout ran undisturbed, remote from 
busy haunts of men, has, in several places, disap- 
peared, and vistas stretch into the depths and to 
the verge of the sky. These clearings leave a rugged 
and stumpy appearance, and strip the ground of 
the glorious livery of verdure that robed and hid 
its barrenness and poverty. These places are now 
occasional, at least, in the lower ten miles, and, to 
us, changed the old landmarks. 

But we struck one familiar point when we put 
in to Camp Thebault for dinner. It and its 



230 TKOUTING ON THE BEULE. 

environs were unchanged. There were wildness and 
forest enough of virginal nature to make it a fitting 
range for the wolf, whose howl we had there heard 
in the distance. "When there in 1875, we had im- 
printed, with a Faber, on a large pine, fresh barked 
for the purpose, our names and the figures of the 
catch. Recalling tlie "trivial fond recoids" of 
previous troutings by other parties, as we had found 
them inscribed on trees, we then supposed we were 
leaving behind us a proud triumphal memorial of 
angling prowess, by scoring, in empliatic promi- 
nence, the figures of seven hundred and seventy-four. 
Looking now at these, our own figures of before, 
we thought we could put on airs — certainly over 
our former selves — and lay rather flattering unction 
to our souls, in view of the statistical results of this 
trip. It counted a total of thirteen hundred and 
eighty-eight. The individual figures, or those of 
each in this total, ranked High considerably first, 
Pratt next, myself third, and, because of his earlier 
return, Denison last, in the rivalry and credit of 
exploits with the rod. A more imposing maximum 
might easily have been reached with only a few more 
daily hours spent in the effort. The few scores of a 
single catching fully satisfied the demands of a 
reasonable sporting ambition for the time, while 
other possible scores would have been wanton and 
wasteful excess. A superfluity palled the keenness 
of appetite. The smaller fry we invariably returned 
to the water. 



SUMMEE WAYFARING. 231 

When at dinner, and as he prodded his fifth trout 
with his fork, High remarked that ]ie had always 
heard and thought that blessings brighten as they 
take their flight, and in view of the imminent van- 
ishment of the luscious trout meals, he intended to 
make the most of the last to be set before hi m. . After 
so long breakfasting, dining, supping and sleeping 
on trout, this certainly showed a healthy and still 
appreciatory appetence for trout. We all agi-eed in 
applying Dr. Butler's praise of the strawberry to 
trout: " Doubtless God might have made a better 
fish, but doubtless God never did." However, for 
my own part, I owned up to a trifle of satiety on 
trout, and it would be no serious gastronomic pen- 
ance to me to take leave of that daintiest dish until 
the next or other season's excursion. 

At all events, the trouting was practically ended. 
The lines were wound up, the reels were rubbed 
dry and wrapped, the rods were slid into their final 
covers, and the baskets were stuffed with odds and 
ends. The fishing campaign, we knew, was over, 
as we swept into sight of a lumberman's cabin a 
mile above the mouth of the Brule, in a clearing 
cut out since our former knowledge of the river. 
It was of the usual style of the logman's quarters 
— a parallelogram of pine logs, low and long, and 
roofed with shakes, fitted with bunks for sleeping, 
and with a center board table for meals. It is the 
winter quarters of the hardy cutters whose axes 



232 TEOurnfG ox the beule. 

level the forest and convert it into logs to be floated 
on tlie spring freshets to the mills, whence, as lum- 
ber, the pine is dispersed over ■wide regions. 

To this cabin we designed a visitation, and hove 
to at the landing place. VTe knew by a pale, blnish 
film of smoke rising above the roof that some living 
soul was on the premises. To onr knock responded 
a man and a dog. It was a response of welcome 
trom both- It was easy to see in the shiny, oily 
face of the man. in his costume glossed with grease, 
and from his odor redolent of kitchen pots and dish- 
water, that he was the co^^k. He was short, pursy 
and bald; a French-Canadian, and was not wanting 
in the reputed afiabilitj of his race. As only three 
or four men were now of his household, his duties 
were not pressing, and he had leisure to smoke his 
well-blackened brier-wood pipe and lazily parley 
^vith us. 

We were welcome to any supplies we might re- 
quire, and as replenishment of the larder was the 
chief purpose of the visit, he supplied our necessi- 
ties of pork, flour, potatoes and tobacco, as well as 
spared us a Chicago Sunday newspaper a fortnight 
old. Bobbie, his dog, was not less sociable, and 
when we patted him, wagged us his tail in friendly 
welcome, and hospitably rubbed his nose on our 
trousers. Parts of the walls were a rude art gal- 
lery, formed of wood-cuts, clippings from pictorial 
papers and police gazettes far out ol date, cheap, 



SrMMEB WATTAEIXG. 233 

flaming, higli-colored lithograplis, and for»a devo- 
tional siiLject, an engraving of saint and saintess in 
flamboyant robes. These, and familiar kitchen and 
household appliances, reminded ns that we were now 
approaching the regions of settlement, the frontier 
of civilization. 

It was curious to recall, that since we left Eepnb- 
lic, nntil we faced this sylvan pot-slinger, and with 
the exception of the redskin and the squaws on the 
Paint, we had not seen a human face or habitation, 
or sijms of them, unless the trails we trod over may 
be considered such signs. The portages are so sel- 
dom imprinted by a human foot, that nature almost 
reclaims them, by growths and fallen timber, back 
to their natural wildness, so that they are often ob- 
scure and treacherous. A travel by land and 
water, as long and as far as ours, and through re- 
gions as wide apart, with nothing in sight but all- 
pervading nature, and not even a single token of 
man's presence, serves to show the ntter silence, 
vastness and wildness of the wilderness, still prim- 
itive in the forms impressed by the Creator. He 
alone was present on the noiseless and solitary 
pathways of our advance. 

The summer livery of the forests will have many 
a season to decay and grow again, and again to 
fade and fall, before much of this great wilder- 
ness shall blossom as the rose. And we were then 
not out of the woods. This was about the last of 



23i TROUTING ON THE BEULE. 

tlie Brule, for a mile below the los^ging cabin it 
and tlie Paint commingle their waters, and, flowing 
together five or six miles, the Michigami adds its 
volume, and the blended affluents become the Me- 
nominee. We portaged ourselves over the rough 
trail from above and around the Brule falls, while 
the Indians shot the birch-bark, bounding like a 
cork among the dangerous boulders, and through 
the tossing breakers of the rapids, safely and 
quickly into still water. We had time, while 
the traps were being borne over the carry, to read 
the legends on the trees, which are numerous in 
fio-ures and names. Amono^ those survivinej "de- 
cay's effacing fingers," we found our own former 
memorials done in Bissell's boldest autographic 
scrawl. To these was now added a supplementary 
inscription of the present party. Many of these 
rude tablets of the trees were curious and eccentric 
in their chirography and spelling, and some of 
them were in a jingle of rhyme. It would seem 
that usually, Brule troutsmen were not wearied with 
an affluence of sport. 

The goal of the day's voyaging was Badwater, and 
Tom King's cabin there. We had enthusiastically 
invited ourselves to be his guests, and to give him 
a friendly surprise. We foretold ourselves a cor- 
dial reception. Our time-table was so set that we 
and the night would come together at that point. 
But the day advanced more fleetly than our canoe. 



SUMISIEK WAYFARING. 235 

We could not go do^n as fast as the evening sun 
declined. The paddles strained a point in the way 
of propulsive effort, and sped the craft gallantly on, 
and though she sprang like a spurred courser ahead, 
it was evident, when we saw the sunset reddening 
ah'eady into rosy flush, and we were yet some miles 
off, the propelling machinery would be unequal to 
the task. So the Indians slowed the advance, and, a 
coujile of miles below the confluence of the Michi- 
gami and the other mingled streams, where the Me- 
nominee debouches into several channels, forming 
little islands, we turned ashore to encamp. It was 
at a point where these several branches join the main 
river, and we could command a view of the silver}- 
threads of stream. 

On the inside of the point there was a huge log- 
drift lodged and heaved up by the freshets. Trunks 
of all sized trees were swept into a shapeless jaui 
and jaofged chaos. The top ledge of this massive 
interwedged drift was at least thirty feet above the 
water-mark, showing the height and force of the 
floods that had whirled them there. There was a 
glut of fuel, and Ave had no trouble, with the lurid 
irradiation of the heaping camp-fire, in driving back 
the deep shadows of the night. 

In the morning the bones of the last trout mess 
were left strewn around the breakfast 10°:. Our 
trout-pampered epicurism was now ended. "With 
the exception of the prospective venison from ex- 



236 TROUTING ON THE BRULE. 

pected deer further down, our repasts in the future 
voyaging would be reduced to the staples of cook- 
ery. It is said that kingfishers encase their nests in 
the banks with a lining of lish-bones. Our encamp- 
ments on the Brule must have proved windfalls of 
tj'out skeletonry to the kingfishers there, and if the 
kingfishers, so many of which made our acquaint- 
ance, lined their nests with our leavings, our ' 
wanderings and sojournings must have been a 
happy godsend to them. This allusion was sug- 
gested by a kingfisher which, near to us, swooped 
down and dipped his plumage for an unwary 
sucker or chub as a breakfast meal. 

The anticipated sensation of the day was our 
intended and self-invited call on our former Menom- 
inee guide, Tom King, of Badwater. His pagan 
name is Weawhlny-Ket. Our Menominees inter- 
preted it as Weawhiny, white, and Ket^ arm. So 
liis native alias means White-arm. Literally, on ac- 
count of his dark coppery complexion, the expres- 
sion is incongruous and a misnomer. But we 
chose to take it as meaning whiteness in the figura- 
tive sense of quality, as when it is said of a man that 
he is white, and, in that liberal interpretative spirit 
we were contemplating a reception worthy of a man 
and a brother. It was our cue to descend on him 
as a surprise party, and I intended taking, as is not 
nnusnal in such fashionable and impromptu inva- 
sions, refreshments of a cheering and festive kind. 



SUMMER WAYFARING. 237 

So as we neared Badwater and swung into the 
reach where his cabin was visible, and knew from 
the bine smoke which thinlj curled up from the 
chimney that somebody was at home, the paddles 
dipped quicker strokes to speed us to the place. 

Nobody, however, appeared to hail our coming. 
In fact, as we drew up at the landing place, the 
open door of the mansion was promptly shut with 
an emiDhatic slam. We failed to observe any latch 
string hanging out. Neither squaw, papoose or 
Weawbiny-ket even yet appeared with an eye to 
mark our coming and grow brighter as we came. 
In truth, the surprise party was a surprised party. 
When our surprise gave way to reflection, we con- 
cluded that sort of thing was Indian style, for the 
similarly meaning formula of good society, not at 
home. However, we thought we would not be too 
sensitive, or put too fine a point on it. We were 
in serious need of pitch to smear the canoe, and 
like Falstaif, hiding our honor in our necessity, we 
dispatched Thebault, as bearer of dispatches, on a 
mission of inquiry to Madame King, the Weawbinj^- 
kettle of the domicile. He met the matron at the 
doorway, and held a threshold pow-wow with her. 

As the result of his embassage, our envoy in- 
formed us that Tom himself was absent up the 
Michigami, and further, that Denison and Pratt 
had invaded her premises, at midnight, during a 
rain storm, drenched and in a high- state of appe- 



238 TKOUTING ON THE BEULE. 

tite. This circumstance enlightened us, and was 
probably the key to the mystery of the Weawbiny- 
kettle cold shoulder shown us. Those famished 
and inundated gentlemen had possibly laid waste 
all the provisions in the house, as well as moistly 
monopolized the family beds and blankets, and 
sent the motlier squaw and the little Weawbiny- 
kittens to the kitchen floor to worry away a hapless 
night. Possibly, therefore, a second apparition of 
pale faces, just from the woods, reduced to meagre 
rations, was a symbol to her untutored mind of 
famine and freezing both. Giving the accused the 
benefit of the doubt, then, we wrapped ourselves in 
our imaginary mantles of charity, and, in a benig- 
nant frame of mind, we were prepared to go on our 
way, forgiving and forgetting our metaphorical and 
vicarious slap in the face on account of Denison 
and Pratt. 

We ran across the river, and advanced, in full 
force, to a cabin there, for a supply of pitch. We 
found there one intimidated squaw and three papoo- 
ses, "one little, two little, three little Indian boys." 
But as to the pitch, there was not to be had enough 
to verify the proverb that whoev'er toucheth pitch 
lie is defiled. We left Badwater with our colors 
at half-mast, so to speak. Two miles below was 
Badwater Crossing, a ferry established the previous 
year for the road to the logging camp near Brule 
falls. This road marks an inroad of civilization, 



SUMMER WAYFARING. 239 

and pioneers the advance of man into the domain 
of nature. 

At the crossing is a pine-log cabin, with preten- 
sions to be classed as an inn, judging from the legend 
"Montreal Badwater House," imprinted on a splint 
or shake over the main door. It stands on a high 
smooth bluff, in a handsome situation, at the con- 
vex point of a curve in the river. It has several 
apartments. There was a garden with familiar 
potato vines, beets and cabbage. Paul Miller is the 
Boniface, and because there was a bright-eyed, 
comely woman to mistress it, the household was all 
snug, neat and tidy, and had an appearance of home 
comfort. To support its tavernous pretensions, it 
had just had at least one guest named on its regis- 
ter. That was D. H. Lloyd, of the Chicago Tribune, 
who had a few days sojoui-ned there. After satisfy- 
ing a modest ambition with his rifle in tapping a 
deer's blood and securing the carcass to be sent to 
the city, he had undauntedly set out on the home 
return, on a stout pair of shank.^, through the woods 
to a point on the new railroad. He had stored here 
a gem of a birch-bark canoe, nearly tiny, pretty and 
light enough for a fairy craft — not much larger 
than a Manitoba snow-shoe, and fitted only for a 
crew of one. 

Here we found a package of Chicago journals, 
and letters from those who had somethino^ sweet 
and domestic to tell of home, forwarded by Arthur 



'240 TROUTING ON THE BRULE. 

T. Jones, of Marinette. We appreciated tlie civil- 
ity and attention of this gentleman. He is him- 
self a devoted and skillful brother of the angle, and 
is one of those of whom it is said, in the words of the 
milkmaid's mother, in the Complete Angler: " All 
anglers be such honest, civil, quiet men." For his 
kindness to us we would wish fortune to " set him 
in a shower of gold, and hail rich pearls upon liim." 
Yet papers and letters only momentarily diverted 
our thoughts, but did not inspire longings for the 
homes and the world beyond, whose messages and 
news they bore us. We were still so much in spirit 
with our surroundings that neither Gibbon's fight, 
nor Hall's discovery of a satellite of Mars, nor the 
war of Osmanli and Muscovite, nor the perturba- 
tions of finance, nor any freshet of news could then 
sensationalize us out of the charm, composure and 
dolcefar niente of our uncompleted voyage. We 
would foretaste or borrow no sensations. We would 
be soon enough returned to the fret and friction of 
city and business life. We wanted our drift into 
activity at high pressure to be as smooth, quiet and 
gentle as the flow of the river. So our newspapers 
hardlj' rippled, for the moment, the ease and calm 
of the M^ay, and of our way of life. The hours were 
golden with us, but we were not fain to chase them 
with flying feet. Passing each of the cascades of 
the Twin falls, we sidled ashore at a curving ledge 
of rock rising up to an elevation. Its face was 



SUMMER WAYFARING. 241 

tliinlj streaked with a shag or scanty nap ol moss, 
and up the side was clothed with a thicket of 
stunted trees, in the shade of which we were served 
to good purj)ose, with some of Paul Miller's contri- 
butions to the larder. Just below there were some 
ugly rapids with wildly pitching billows. It seemed 
that one's time had possibly come should he dare a 
passage, which fur the canoe was clearly an extra- 
hazardous risk which a prudent underwriter would 
not insure against to the value of a pin's fee. The 
natives checked up on the verge of the turbulence, 
and took circumspective glances, and parleyed a 
little and pondered more. We knew the venture 
was a dubious one. The nervous organizations of 
Chicago, at least, were not absolutely placid. 

I noticed that on close approach to the " vex'd 
Bermoothes," High lifted his eyes from a highly 
seasoned Milwaukee divorce scandal and family 
racket in a newspaper, with the details of which he 
had been engrossed, and devoted his particular so- 
licitude to the raging breakers. I shared his anx- 
iety, and thought " If it were done, then t'were well 
it were done quickly." But the Indians at length 
unleashed the craft and let it loose. It bounded 
among heaving waters rushingly. The reckless 
white-caps, like enraged and frantic water sprites, 
with mad foam frothing their lips, tossed and leaped 
up to us as if they would board the birch-bark, and 
lap us in their watery embrace. We shot through 
16 



242 TROUTING ON THE BRULE. 

tlie seething peril very rapidly, however, witli no 
mishap more serious than a few splashes, and scoop- 
ing in two or three of the more daring white-caps. 
Iljgh resumed the perusal of the matrimonial sen- 
sation of Milwaukee. 

The few miles to Big Quiniseck Falls were miles 
of uniformly beautiful scenery. In some reaches 
the stream glided partly under the shade of the for- 
est, and then on curving around abend spread into 
full radiance of the sun, so that we were flitting from 
light to shade; but the river was placid as a paint- 
ed meadow brook. , The stillness of the entire scene 
was impressive; not a leaf trembling to the sigh of 
a breeze, not a twig moving, not air enough astir to 
breathe a film of agitation; only the widening rip- 
ples cut by the canoe and the spirals from the dip 
of the paddles, to mar the mirror-like gloss and 
calm of the stream, and like silence of the bord- 
ering woods, with scarce a note or chirp or twitter 
of a bird; this was a stillness which could hardly 
be found elsewhere. We insensibly assimilated 
ourselves in spirit to the profound and all-pervad- 
ing calm, and sympathetically lapsed into a seren- 
ity and langour in harmony with the overpowering 
hush and repose of nature. Dreamily, passively, 
voicelessly and restfully, we kept in this luxurious 
drowse of enchantment till we neared Big Quini- 
seck Falls. Only the rumble of the falling waters 
broke the charm. 



SUMMER WAYFARING. 243 

We had scarcely recovered from the spell before 
our birch bark touched the head of the trail. The 
portage is a wearisome trudge of two miles, a path- 
way for single-filing, and almost smothered in the 
profusion of bushes, which often tripped the feet or 
switched in our faces. High and I shouldered the 
blanket packs and led off, and with much weariness 
of flesh and in copious sweat of the brow, slowly 
paced the seemingly interminable, and occasionally 
almost impenetrable route. Ours, though, was a 
trifling labor compared with the task of Thebault 
and Paul. They twice plodded over the route, and 
even their stalwart frames weakened and tired under 
the strain; and before the carry was all finished, 
and they had borne the canoe through the sea of 
foliage, the twilight overspread us in its gathered 
shades. 

We tented on the high point of rock on the Mich- 
igan side. We had a commanding view of the 
scenery, striking yet, though sobered into dimmer 
outline. But in the glow of the morning sun the 
scenery was beautiful exceedingly. At our feet the 
foam from the cataract washed the edge of the 
shore, and laid in streaks like drifts of snow. The 
currents in the eddies curved gracefully, bearing 
flakes and tufts of foam. Just by, the misty spray 
rose like a phantom drapery of silvery smoke over 
the rushing waters of the falls. The perspective 
down the river was not less charming. 



244 TROUTING ON THE BKULE. 

In fact, the whole scenery of these falls, the wild- 
ness and beauty, the forest and stream, need only 
the genius of some Claude Lorraine, Turner or 
Church to trace and color them in the immortal 
glories of art, to make them world-known and famed 
and sought. Some day, tourists in search of the pic- 
turesque and artists in pursuit of studies, will come 
out of their way to take in Big Quiniseck Falls. 
Pictures of them in the memory of the one, and on 
the canvass of the other, would well match, or sur- 
pass, those of many a vie"v^ more famed of art and 
story. These were the impressions of the former 
trip, and now they were more than renewed. 



CHAPTER XIX. 

A sportsman's camp — AMENITIES OF THE WOODS — LITTLE 
QUINISECK FALLS — SAND RAPID — STURGEON FARM — A HAT 
— STURGEON FALLS — DR. ANDREWS — PEEMBINWUN RAPIDS 
— A PICKEREL INCIDENT — INDIAN ENCAMPMENT— PEEMONY 
FALLS — RIVER SCENES. 

After starting, not many minutes of paddling 
brouglit within view, in the distance, a scene of 
quite another sort, which put an end to our impres- 
sions of the grand and beautiful, and set our emo- 
tions to quite another key. A couple of tents on 
the bank, in white relief against a deep emerald 
background, with figures standing or moving about, 
proclaimed a camp. Nearing more closely, we 
knew by the token of a deer-skin stretched to dry, 
and from the red-shirted Indians, and a group of 
men in hunting coats in the foreground, that we 
had come upon a sportsman's encampment. When 
within hail, we were saluted with a hearty "Good 
morning, gentlemen, won't you land?" There was 
(245) 



246 TKOUTING ON TUE BRULE. 

a very generous alacrity on our part to accept the 
invitation, and we promptly turned in and laid 
alongside the pine-log pier and disembarked. 

There were no preliminary formalities. The 
shaken hands at once endenizened us, as it were, in 
the full freedom of the camp, and the pledge or 
ceremony of investiture with such freedom was a 
a pipe apiece to smoke, and a cup of kindness from 
the confidential demijohn. These hospitalities were 
agreeably improved by us. We exchanged short 
and rapid expeditionary histories. Our friends, as 
we felt them to be, were a Chicago party, at the 
head of which was Robert Clark, the well-known 
veteran woods sportsman, with Ira Augur, W. B. 
Wilcox, and C. E. Fargo, as his fellows. They had 
five Chippewa camp followers, luggers and polers. 

They had journeyed overland, and three days 
previously struck the river and set up their can- 
vass quarters at this point. The canoe flotilla and. 
the Indians had come on in advance and to await 
them. They had already had a prelude of gunning 
and game, and had shot and feasted on two deer; 
of one of these they spared us an acceptable haunch 
with their compliments, and with gratefulness from 
us. They were well equipped for all the contin- 
gencies; and were bound for the Brule. Our brief 
meeting with them was a delightful episode of so- 
cialities and kindnesses on surprise, and an in- 
stance of the rough and spontaneous friendliness 



SUMMER WAYFARING. 217 

of the woods. We heartily wished them hon voyage, 
and gave them our friendliest adieus. 

Little Qniniseck Falls are not now as grand as 
we saw them in their primitive and natural estate. 
Science, capital and labor have shorn them of much 
of their natural grandeur. Some combined lumber 
companies are waging a strife against nature for 
their improvement. The design is to merge the 
separate runs of water into one, which is to be 
freed, by blasting, from the rocks that formerl}' 
split or broke in pieces the logs pitching over. By 
a temporary wing-dam, the water is forced into the 
Wisconsin chute, while the Michigan branch is 
having its rock blasted out piecemeal, and huge 
masses and ledges of the granite were being blown 
from foundations as old and firm as those of the 
everlasting hills. 

Man with capital, and giant powder as his dyna- 
mic agent, will soon prevail, and cataracts that for 
ages have been untamed and unchanged, will be 
made obedient and pliant servitors to his needs. 
When the one channel is excavated or blasted out, 
and the whole river turned into it, there will be lit- 
tle of the natural grandeur of the cascade left. 
When we passed there, we found an encampment 
of many men who were working the drills and blasts. 
Powder and steel have wrought wonders, but these 
wonders of skill and science have nearly eifaccd 
some of the impressive wonders of nature. In the 



248 TEOCTING ON THE BRULE. 

basin below, where I had formerly but vainly drop- 
ped in hook and line, one of the brawny drill-pick- 
ers had been bobbing for fish, and had nipped nearly 
a score of bass and wall-eyed pike. 

Preparatory to attempting the Sand Rapid we 
lunched, not far below the falls, on a rocky point. 
These rapids are an ordeal of peril to the frail birch- 
barks. They are three miles of boulders, breakers, 
shallows, whirls and dashes, in one stretch. The 
trail around is two miles, and zig-zags up a spur of 
elevation — quite the most considerable up-hill ele- 
vation of the route yet passed — and strained our 
pedestrianism to its utmost. On the plateau was a 
sparseness of forest in places, there were woods 
elsewhere with prostrate trees over which we 
climbed and scrambled through the branches, with 
much peril to the rods we carried. On the other 
and descending side of the hill-spur, the trail was 
lost in grasses and bushes, and down on the level, 
the tauffle of fallen timber and undero'rowth was 
such that we thought the way hopelessly barred and 
lost. 

We aimlessly struggled through the obstructive 
maze, without a visible trace of the path, and sink- 
ing at every step in the plashes of the marsh. By 
accident, we came upon a dragway for logs, which 
we followed up, and it led us to the river. By 
clambering and balancing on treacherous trunks in 
the log-drifts, and jumping from stone to stone, in 



SU:.IMER WAYFARING. 240 

the edge of the water, and by scuffling through 
thickets, we finally made our way, exhausted, to the 
foot of the Rapid. 

This was just in time to see the Dickey heave in 
sight, the paddles swinging briskly from side to 
side, winding with the coiling channel, sometimes 
checked and eased up with the poles, then shooting 
ahead in bounding swiftness, and nearing us, round- 
ing and gracefully riding in the still water at our 
feet. We thankfully blessed the good fortune that, 
through the dangerous passing, she was 

" Held up so tenderly, 
Fashioned so slenderly," 

as to come in unharmed in perfect trim. 

We ran near a woodchuck swimming across. We 
veered a bit one side, so Thebault could jab his head 
underwater with the paddle. The submersion only 
enraged the creature. He emerged, snorting the 
water from his nostrils, and spunkily turned and 
swam toward us in our wake, as if to fight the whole 
party, spitting vicionsly at us like a mad cat. His 
pluck was appreciated. We declined the skirmish. 
We preferred to give him our benediction. We let 
him go, with the magnanimous words of Uncle 
Toby to the fly, " Go, poor devil ; the world is large 
enough for us all." 

The next port of entry was the New York farm, 
at the mouth of Sturgeon river. As our carrying 
caj)acity was less than our consuming ability, the 



250 TEOUTING ON THE BKULE. 

robustness of our forest-sliarpened appetite brought 
us frequently to the verge of depletion, and now 
the viands were running short again. It was neces- 
sary to victual the expedition; we therefore landed 
in a stress of pork and tubers. I was deputed to 
attend to this commercial, or rather commissariat 
business. Thebault, bearing bag and basket, at- 
tended me as master of transportation. As a pro- 
visional deputation we climbed the sandy path up 
the steep bank, and presently interviewed the busi- 
ness man of the demesne. The figures on his price 
current were reasonable, the supplies abundant, and 
the traffic was completed before our heels had time 
to cool. 

During the interval of the chaffering, the ladies of 
the family or household strewed the full-blown 
roses of their smiles on our path, and to us who had 
been fellows so long to the weeds, herbage and other 
vestures of the wilderness, such flowers ' were win- 
somely sweet and pleasant — " too pleasant to be 
looked upon except on holidays " — and they made a 
brief holiday to us. The grangeresses or patron- 
esses of husbandry, it is true, very curiousl}'^ eyed 
my hat askance, as though they were sure that tliey 
never saw anything quite like that head-gear. Still 
I hoped I had acquitted myself in the way of civil- 
ity and devoirs quite as well as High did at the 
Wausauka tents, when the ladies giggled at him in 
his gallant role of Turveydrop. 



SUMMER WAYFAEING. 251 

In fact the hat was something phenomenal. Its 
original linen dome-shape was speckled like a guinea- 
hen, and from its resemblance to the spotted plum- 
age of that barn-yard fowl, Denison nicknamed the 
cliapeau guinea-hen, and I was not critical enough 
nicely to consider whether that name was a mis- 
nomer. The hat had been presented to me expressly 
for the trip, by a near relative of an ex-president of 
the United States, and as this was nearest to anything 
in the way of executive patronage I ever received, I 
felt bound to make the most of the gift. It had an 
indestructibility equal to that of a nine-lived cat. 
It had been trampled on, sat on, slept on, rained on, 
shined on, dried in the sun, shrivelled by the lire, 
turned inside out, with its brim looped up and also 
flapped down, and had moulded itself into most 
varied shapes, and still retained the essential utilities 
of a hat. It entirely eclipsed m}^ felt hat. 

We had news of Denison and Pratt at this place; 
they had put in there under stress of circumstances, 
and had been compelled to abandon and condemn 
the Tom King as unseaworthy, probably from her 
havino^ been rou£jh-used and battered in the labvr- 
inths of the Sand Eapid. Fortunately, they re- 
lieved themselves from their stranded condition by 
being able to get teamed, from the farm, a few 
miles to the new railroad for a train. 

From the farm to Sturgeon Falls is a mile; over 
a high back-bone of a hill, the trail winds to the 



252 TEOUTING ON THE BRULE. 

foot of the cascade; short as the portage was, it 
was panting work to climb it. Lowering clouds 
obscured the setting sun, and tokened the quick 
advance of showers from the west; we hasted to 
set our house in order, and had but barely reared 
the canopy, when the skirmish line of the charging 
clouds opened on us and nearly beat out the camp- 
fire, and forced us into shelter. Supper was served 
in the tent by the feeble glimmering of the fitful 
tallow-dip. Soon the heavier and massed squad- 
rons of rain-clouds swept over, and delivered us rain 
in torrents; there was thunder resonance, with 
flashings of lightning. ' 

It was a scene of great moisture; drops trickled 
through some pores of the tent, and our inner at- 
mosphere was grievously humid; the supply of 
hemlock boughs, for embedding on, was scant; the 
dreams of broken sleep, the beating of the rain and 
the dampness made it a night of dismal phantas- 
mag-oria to us. The morn did not come in russet 
mantle clad. Though the heaviest of the storm had 
passed, a train or rear-guard of scowling clouds 
hung back portentously looming. On a memorial 
tree we saw inscribed the names of Doctor E. An- 
drews and sons, of Chicago, who had encamped 
here the previous night. We were prompt, as soon 
as we had breakfasted and stowed the cargo, to start 
on our way rejoicing from the forbidding spot. 

At the strip of shore where Pratt had, on the 



SUMMER WAYFARING. 253 

previous trip killed a fawn, fresh deer-tracks im- 
printed tlie sand. He ])ad then declared per- 
petual truce and amity with the deer kind. But 
Thebault was not so compunctious or tender-heart- 
ed, and was on the lookout for the hoofed and an- 
tlered "native burghers of the desert city." It was 
life and liberty to those recent deer that they had 
seasonably' made tracks out of the way, which 
was all we saw of them. Clark's venison had now 
gone the way of all flesh of the haunch, that is to 
pot, and we depended for fresh meat on the rifle. 
We were, therefore, advancing in a state of armed 
reconnoisance. 

At Peembinwun rapids the Menominee was 
almost shrunken literally to bed-rock. The whole 
loading was put ashore and carried around. Tlie 
canofe was safely, though at hazard of wrecking, 
guided through. There was a fine vesture of grass 
in tlie shade, and we had lunch there, and reclining 
on the grass, we leisurely sipped the Oolong tea 
procured at Sturgeon farm, and much at ease en- 
joyed the prandial snack. Three Chippewas, on 
the way above for deer, stopped for portaging their 
canoes and for rest, at this point. They and our 
natives held a brief international or intertribal 
council on the ground, in one of their maternal 
tongues. It was not encouraging to our aspirations 
or rather stomach for venison, expected below, that 
these redskins had left from below, and were out 



254 TROUTING ON THE BRULE. 

to peer the country over our just traversed course, 
in deer-slaying colioot. 

There was a pickerel entertainment here, also. 
Just off our canoe, at the beach, High espied a large 
pickerel, about two feet in length, sunning himself 
or sleeping in shoal water. On account of my 
tourney with one of the same species at Michigami 
falls, High pointed him to me as the pickerel champ- 
ion. But I declined the exertion of unsheathing, 
jointing up and rigging my rod for even so promis- 
ing a diversion. Thereupon, Thebault attempted 
to knock out the fish's brains wdth the pushing pole, 
but the pickerel dodged, and bore off his brains with 
him to the deeper water. But presently, the offi- 
cious fish swam again into sight. This hardihood 
now roused High's piscatory blood; but how to 
harmonize it and his piscatory taste, to which l!!feit- 
ing seemed only foul play and wholly repugnant, 
was a perplexity — for a moment. He knew a pick- 
erel v^rould turn up its nose at a fly gewgaw. So, to 
compromise himself only partially, he tacked on 
what we supposed was a slit of bacon with a new 
glaring red -fly. 

High clambered to a rock in reach of the fish, 
and gently sw^mg in the gorgeous mongrel scare- 
crow right by the fish's snout. As was to be ex- 
pected, the. monstrous thing-of-a-jig terrified the 
pickerel into fits, and it shot off like a flash into the 
deep. Such an egregious ^^asco would set any table 



SUMMER WAYFARING. 255 

in a roar, and the jest was too miicli for even Indian 
gravity. High manfully bore our broad grins, bnt 
when he was chaifed for baiting with ignominions 
pork, he vehemently resented the derogatory impn- 
tation, and protested it was a tittle of deer grafted 
on the fly. We had not been aware that there was 
a venison fibre on hand, and thongli, in his word, I 
generally considered him, like Horatio, " as just a 
man as e' er m}^ conversation cop'd withal," I was 
after all sceptical about the deer. 

I^ot far below was an encampment of Indians, 
sqnaws, papooses and dogs, who had come up from 
White RajDids for a sojourn in bark tepees, on a gen- 
eral shooting and curing of deer for winter. One 
of the men had just punctured a buck, though not 
so mortally but that the shot animal was able to get 
away with his antlers and the bullet into unknown 
parts of Michigan. As we came along, the savage 
was squatted in his canoe, musing like a sage how 
receding deer, like other blessings, are most prized 
when they take their flight. The pickerel exploit 
inspired High with a fellow feeling that made him 
look wondrous kind and sympathetic tpward the 
discomfited copper-skin. 

On the Feemony Falls portage, a handsome trail, 
we failed to find any of the blueberries which, on 
the former occasion, so plentifully bespangled the 
ground, like dewdrops in blue. Just below there 
is a cultivated farm, with the most pretentious hab- 



256 TROUTIXG ON THE BRULE, 

itation on tlie river, having an existing household 
and home, and it is really the most advanced outpost 
of agriculture on the river. On the bank below it, 
an hour's run, were two clearings or meadows, with 
Indian cabins. At one of them, a couple of youth- 
ful Chippewas, in primitive duds and innocence, 
stood on the bank and curiously gazed at us passing, 
as if we were an unaccustomed apparition. Three 
miles further down was one of our former camping 
grounds. The shadows of evening; that were o^ath- 
ering, as well as considerations of kettle and pan, 
joined in directing and hastening us there as an 
encampment for the night. 

The hand of innovation had made notable chang- 
es; the forest that shadowed the river, had been thin- 
ned out, and the landmarks were difficult of recog- 
nition; though, on the opposite shore, the dense 
wood still reared up, in its native wildness, its dark 
and solemn outlines. These more frequent clear- 
ings and deadenings have destroyed much of the 
beauty of the lower Menominee scenery; the many 
leafless trees, gaunt, stripped, blackened by fire, or 
dead from girdling, in the garish sun, give a for- 
lorn and naked appearance. The denuded land, 
however, after being stripped of its timber, con- 
verted into logs and floated to the mills, is left bar- 
ren and unpeopled, and is not sown for harvests or 
cultivated for homes and habitations. The charms 
of voyaging the stream are rapidly vanishing; 



SUMMER AVAYFAEING. 257 

while the hixurianeeof nature is bein^ shorn away, 
it is not replaced with the tokens and evidences of 
life and labor. 

These occasional disafforested strips, which have 
made unsightly gaps in the massiveness of the 
woods, present an appearance of utter waste or 
desert, strangely at variance with the luxuriant 
density of the wilderness elsewhere. The growths 
of weeds and stunted shrubbery that creep over tlie 
ground, unpleasantly mark both the despoliation of 
the original forest wealth and the sterility or pov- 
erty of the soil itself. It will probably be very 
many years before the smoke of domestic altars in 
cottagers' abodes will ascend in these clearings, as 
signs of farm or pastoral life, and of homes of con- 
tented labor and enterprise and prospective wealtJi. 
17 



CHAPTEE XX. 

WHITE RAPIDS — TKOUT BROOKLET — PIKE RIVER AND WANI- 
TAH — SIXTY ISLANDS — YELLOW DOGS — RAVENS — HIGH AS 
PADDLER — JIM KAQUOTASH — LONE PINE CAMP — EVENING 
SCENE — LOWER MENOMINEE— DOCTOR ANDREWS — THE END 

— ST. Peter's blessing. 

It was not a long paddle we had of it to White 
Rapids. High and I took to the pathway through 
the meadow-like stretch of ground, thinlj fringed 
on the bank with small trees, casting a meagre rag- 
ged shade, and left the Indians to work the canoe 
tlirough the shoals and rapids. The trouting fever 
showed symptoms on High as soon as we touched 
the trail. He recalled his reminiscences of the 
rather difficult, hut not unpleasant sport before, 
at the brooklet. It was easy to presage his wishes 
from the tone of his recollections, and from his so- 
licitude about the signs of the weather, of which he 
took constant observations from the clouds. 

Before the fever had risen to its climacteric, the 
(258) 



SUMMER WAYFARING. 259 

sky was more ominous of a shower, and, even his 
entliusiasni for a trial of the fly, amon^ chimps of 
bushes and thickets of alder, oozed away on account 
of the probable moisture of the attempt. He ad- 
mitted it would liardly pay to wet his jacket for the 
trout, and thought it preferable to take the chances 
of rain with the tent at hand to be landed for ready 
shelter. Though, as this was the last known possi- 
bility of trout on the nearly ended trip, he wavered 
and faltered in will and purpose till we depossible- 
ized the venture by getting him actually embarked 
and under way. 

At the mouth of Pike river,the pine-wood bower 
or boudoir of the dusky Indian maid and kennel 
of the Cerberus dog were shut up and deserted. 
Paul was a trifle emotional on this occasion, possi- 
bly expecting to have had a brief scene of eyes look- 
ing love to eyes that would speak again, or something 
to that effect. The young buck heaved a bit of a 
sigh as M^e went skipping by. We passed the Sixty 
Islands. These are an archipelago of islands and 
islets, a cluster of glorious emerald, of various forms 
and sizes, with splendid profusely branclied and 
leaved elms, a very wealth of verdure, making a 
view of the most lovely and picturesque scenery. 

We were content to float, at times, on the cur- 
rent rather than outspeed it with strokes of the 
paddles, that we might lingeringly enjoy the sur- 
passing beauty. From a cabin we were passing, a 



260 TKOUTING ON THE BEULE. 

yellow dog ran out and followed on the bank, bark- 
ing at us savagely, making the welkin ring with his 
howls, until he yelped all the wind out of him. 
High was facetious enough to hint that guinea- 
hen hat as the cause of the yellow whelp's convul- 
sions. Down further, Thebault fired the rifle at a 
plover that was strutting about wetting its toes in 
the edge of the river. The charge had been loaded, 
far above, for expected deer. They were frequent 
on our first descent of this river. On this voyage, 
excepting the two near Camp Chickabiddy, we had 
not seen one of the "dappled fools." The railroad 
to the Breen mines, the clearings and the many 
stranded logs along shore, were said by an Indian 
hunter, to frighten them from the river. 

By the side of a couple of canoes drawn up in 
the grass, was another Yellow Dog, with a com- 
rade. This was quite a different sort of a yellow 
doo- from the ill-beo:otten cur that had shown his 
teeth to us — no other than a well-known old Indian 
of that name, of Twin Island habitancy. Thebault 
and Paul well knew him. They held up, and he 
and his dilapidated chum and themselves fired vol- 
leys of Indian gab promiscuously and interchange- 
ably. He must have been a witty dog, for his sal- 
lies generally brought down our men in rather 
boisterous merriment. Doctor Andrews' party was 
reported by them to have passed down shortly 
before. I am not enough versed in the theory of 



SUMMER WAYFARING. 261 

omens to judge wliether tlie croakings of a funereal 
l^arty of ravens, perched on a dead tree near the 
river, which we heard, were sepulchral forebodings 
or monitions of mortality instinctively excited by 
the appearance of a doctor to their prophetic eyes. 

By noon we were at Wausauka bend. Instead 
of doubling the long narrow promontory on the wa- 
ter, we trod the portage across its base. We in- 
tended dining there. When we camped there 
before, we were swarmed on by the most multitu- 
dinous and ravenous mosquitoes of the whole 
journey. And now, no sooner were our packs laid 
down, than flying legions of the blood-thirsty fiends 
encompassed us round about. Among the leaders 
of the winged lancers, we recognized that demon 
vampyre of the gory host and of his species, the 
gallinipper. The onset was too much for us, and 
the demoralized party fled the field and rallied on a 
further point. 

We went through the Long Reach, which is a 
beautiful, straight and wide perspective of river 
scenery. Instead of having his esthetic sensibilities 
moved, as an impressionable voyager would, by 
such blended charms of wood and stream, High was 
seized with a sudden dementia or idiosyncrasy of 
propulsion. He grasped Thebault's paddle, and 
with it enthusiastically buffeted the water, wield- 
ing it rapidly, like an orchestra leader swaying his 
baton in allegro passages of the score. The canoe. 



262 TKOUTING ON THE BRULE. * 

under his vigorous impulsion, jerked aliead in gal- 
lant style. 

His mode of paddling, though, was rather exhaus- 
tive and not likely to be long-winded. He bended 
forward to plunge the paddle up to the handle, and 
then throwing himself back, . swung a deep, long 
back stroke, making the water swirl, and " in con- 
volution swift the feathered eddy float," when he 
lifted out the blade at the end of the sweep. The 
eccentricity of performance that most concerned me 
was, however, the over-shifting of the paddle from 
one to the other side. It scattered the drip from it 
over me as if from a shower-bath, and with copious 
dampening effects on the cargo, to say nothing of the 
danger of my crown being banged by some of its 
wayward motions. His lunacy of paddling, though 
exciting solicitude, was amusing. It tickled The- 
bault and Paul more than his pickerel experiment 
with the red fly and equivocal venison. HoM^ever 
we could all see that, with the necessary practice. 
High has a great future before him as a paddler. 
But a mile of this health-lift took the wind out 
of him. 

Just above the Relay House rapids, there was an 
Indian's castle of bark. The family linen hung out 
to dry. This was a token, if not of so much clean- 
liness as is next to godliness, at least of the red 
inmates having reached the saponaceous stage of 
civilization. A copper-sheathed Stentor on shore 



SUMMER WAYFAKING. 263 

liailed our boys in a tone loud enough for a 
camp-meeting preacher. Their reply was sotto 
voce comparatively. But they held a parley in 
tongues unknown to us. It appeared that the sten- 
torian aborigine was Jim Kaquotash, a brother of 
our auxiliary Kaquotashes. He told of a weuwhiny 
man who had passed down but little in advance 
of us. This we knew to be Dr. Andrews. We 
hoped to run him down and to extend to him the 
hospitalities of our camp for the night, or, if his 
hospitalities were more liberal than ours, that is, 
if his cornucopia was less impoverished than our 
cornucopia, to permit ourselves to be invited to go 
snacks with him. But the Grand Kapids separated 
us. We navigated them safely, but slowly, and in 
doing so grazed low submerged rocks, rubbed on 
stones, cut through breakers and sometimes stuck 
on flats. 

The last camp of the former trip, at Twin Island, 
the poor demesne of Yellow Dog, was a wretched 
one, with torrents of rain, and the mosrpiitoes of 
all out-of-doors. But the last camp of this trip 
was attended with all the charm of our roughing 
and tenting all the way round about. It was on a 
high bank of clearing, a sward smooth and hand- 
some as a lawn ; not far over on the other side 
was a fine alluvial natural meadow; overshadowing 
the tent, a splended, solitary pine tree, doubtless 
spared from the axe for its stateliness. From this, 
we named our encampment Lone Pine Camp. 



2G4 TROUTIN(J ON THE BRULE. 

The air was soft, pure and baliny. Wlien twi- 
light deepened into dark, we stretched on the grass, 
on the brink of the river, and watclied the stars 
glimmering and quivering reflexlj in the stream, 
and heard the whip-poor-wills whistling to their 
mates, and whip-poor-will notes ^echoing back 
affain. We recalled the manv incidents and unal- 
loyed delights of both our trips, and were loth 
to realize that this was to be the last of our mid- 
summer nights in our companionship with nature. 
With a touch of sentiment we yielded, finally, to 
the stillness and the calm, and, with our pipes whif- 
fing their clouding odors about, mused and lapsed 
into the reveries of wayward fancy. The moon rose 
behind us. Its beams tipped the forest, over .there, 
fronting us in grim silence, like an array of dark, 
weird, embattled phantoms, and their deep draper- 
ies of shadow vanished, and all the wood shone into 
shapes of golden light and beauty. 

We lingered late and long, so as to enjoy the 
charm and glories of the summer night. The 
scene was about to change. All the way we had 
been free from shop. Even in sleep Queen Mab 
had not galloped her team of atomies over our 
lawyer fingers to make us straight dream of 
fees. But now that we were going back to shop, 
all shop, and shop at all times, was, perhaps, the 
dark thread in the weaving of our reveries. We 
made preparation for an early start by packing our 



SUMMER WAYFARING. 265 

luggage and paraphernalia for the last home port- 
age, then to be laid aside, like armor taken oflf and 
hung up during the calm of peace. 

Since the great fire of 1871, which, like a destroy- 
ing angel, smote the forests of far-extending regions 
with a blast of flame, the lower twenty miles of the 
river are strij^ped of all woodland beauty. Burnt 
and blackened stems of branchless trees, without 
shade enough of foliage, except a rare small oasis of 
spreading green, to cover a camping party, with few 
and far between huts and cabins, mark with desola- 
tion this part of the route. For this reason, and from 
the burning glare of the sun, our descent of th^t 
day was the exceptional coursing of the voyage un- 
attended with charm, comfort or pleasure. We 
had Dr. Andrews and party in sight a long way 
down the river, in the van of us. We overhauled 
him only at the head of the log-jam, three miles from 
Marinette and Menominee, where further passage 
was apparently blocked. He, with his sons, was 
sitting on the bank, at full stop, with his skiff at 
bay, in much perplexity. 

There is no critical or delicate case of surgery 
that could confuse or bewilder the eminent surgeon, 
but here was a dilemma too much for all his science 
and skill. It was evidently to him a case like Mer- 
cutio's wound, ''past all surgery." But our boys 
were equal to the emergency. As loggers and log- 
drivers, a chaos and muddle of floated pines were 



26Q TEOUTING ON THE BEULE. 

no novelty or hopeless dead-lock to them. They 
hopped and skipped from one undulatorj and roll- 
ing log to another, far enough down to take in the 
situation. They started the logs afloat, and by 
degrees got those that barred our way deployed and 
going aspread, so that in the gaps opened we could 
make way and tide along with the floating mass. 
The doctor and his boat threaded through in oiir 
wake. The skiff was built by his own sons. In it 
they and he had cruised the river as high as Bad- 
water, merely for a vacation tour, in search of the 
picturesque, to rough it, and to realize the hygiene 
of open air, of summer skies and of forest life. 

We advanced along with the immense fleet of 
logs for nearly a mile, hemmed in sometimes in 
peril of a crush, like arctic boats in moving floes 
of ice. But at length the floating ceased. The 
logs began to compact immovably into a hopeless 
jam. We had nothing left us to do but to lift out 
and unload the canoe, and portage it and the equip- 
age over the loffs to shore, to be teamed thence 
a couple of miles to Marinette. Hot and glaring as 
was the day, the tramp was not formidable to us, 
then well used to footing distances, and we made 
our way on foot. In good season we shook off the 
dust of our feet at the Dunlap House, not inapt 
for a plentiful meal at the tirst tap of the dinner- 
gong. 

Cedant arma togcB. Our vacation and onr tour 



SUMMER WAYFARING. 267 

were ended. From the wood in nature's unbroken 
luxuriance and repose, to the stir and whirl of city 
life; from the canoe, one of the earliest contri- 
vances of primitive man for boating, to the Pull- 
man palace-car, the latest and perfect scheme for 
easing, soothing and luxuriating travel; from the 
trivial fatigues of the portage to the serious 
burdens of daily toil; — these were our extreme 
transitions of a single day. 

Three of us, lawyers, in the early August, wear- 
ied of labor, threw off the professional harness and 
sought freedom of action, rest, health and recre- 
ation — to have a good time. We knew where and 
how to find it, and we had found it in exuberance 
of satisfaction. "We had left our library books to 
find more animating and living books in the run- 
ning brooks, sermons in the stones and good in 
everything. Our outfit was simple, but enough, 
and not overburden some in the canoe or on the 
portage. Our train of Indian attendants was more 
and better than we expected; all of them were 
ready and eager tv do their utmost in their parts 
and sphere, and, as we believe, mutual attachments 
have entwined them and us as friends for all time. 
Our adieus with them were warm with the sincer- 
ity of friendliness. 

And so, looking back over our excursion, in which 
could be recalled no single jar or discordance in the 
common fellowship of the party — without a growl 



208 TROUTING ON THE BRULE. 

or murmur of complaint, or even a physical pain 
or mishap to be remembered, the only regret being 
that of a too early severance or separation while on 
the route — we felt and were at peace of mind and 
rest of body, content with each other and ourselves. 
And all were ready to join in the spirit of the closing 
words of the fislier and hunter in good old Izaak 
Walton's book, "Let the blessing of St. Peter's 
master be mine and upon all that are lovers of 
virtue, and dare trust in his providence and be 
quiet and go a-angling." 



SUMMEE WAYTARING. 



269 



No. 1. 

DISTANCE TABLE.— BRULE RIVER. 



irotn 
To 



Lake Brule 

Hagerman, or Big- Lake Portage. 



First Lake (Portage) 

Hngerman Lake (Portage J mile). 
Pickerel Lake (Portage i mile).. 



Big Hill, Portage 

Foot Big Hill Portage (Portage 3i 

miles) 

• Mouth Mftple Creek 

iLake Chicagon Portage, 

.Cedar Camp 

'Little Brule Falls 

Boot Lakes Camp, (Chickabiddy) 



1st Boot Lake (Portage). 

2d Lake (Portage, i mile) 

3d Lake (Portage, i mile) 

Pine River (Portage, 24 miles t 



Brule Dam, (1878) 

Armstrong's Camp 

La Montaigne's Upper Camp 

Cauldwell's (La Montaigne's 

Farm, f miles). . . 

R. Stephenson's, Brule Farm 

Brule Falls (Mouth Paint River).. 

Mouth Otter Creek 

Mouth Brule River 



8 

li 

i 

i 

4 
17 

3i 

2i 
2i 



1 

II 



1 
1 

2 

3 

5 
li 

2i 
li 



From 
I Republic 



II 

4 



8i 

12i 
2U 
33 

Sbi 

38 

421 



H 

Si 
6i 



43i 
44i 
46i 

49i 

54i 

56 

681 

60 



90i 
93 

m 



98i 

99i 

lOii 

1044 

KM 

111 

1131 

115 



No. 2. 

DISTANCE TABLE.— WAGON ROAD, QUINISECK TO 
BRULE RIVER. (1878) 



From 
To 



Quiniseck 

First Creek 

Second Creek 

Outlet Lake Antoine, 

Bass Lake 

Twin Falls Bridge.. 




270 



TROUTING ON THE BRULE. 



Wagon Road, Quiniseck to Brule River — Continued. 



To 



S35 / 



Badwater Lakes 

Commonwealth Mine 

Otter Creek (Outlet Fisher's Lake). . 

Brule River (R. Stephenson's Brule 

Farm) 



Two Lakes 

Armstrong's Camp. 
Brule Dam 



3i 



4i 



14ir 

17i 

19 

22i 



26i 

3U 



No. 3. 

DISTANCE TABLE.— WAGON ROADS TO PIKE RIVER. 



From 
To 



Section 18 (C. & N. W. Ry.) 

Smith's Farm (mouth Little Cedar). 

Relay House 

Little Shakey River 

Mouth Pike River (Ford) 

Half-way Creek 

High Landings 

Dave's Falls 

Forks Dam 



U 

4 

5 

7i 

6 

6 

71 

li 



TOTAL 



hi 
lOi 
18 
24 
30 
87i 
39 



From 
To 


Carney (Sec. 34i, C. & N. W. Ry.). 


4 

8 
5 
2f 

Sir 






N. Ludington Co.'s Pemenee Farm. 


12 
17 






191 






23 








•' >._: i 




2 

41 

li 


25 




Fork's. Pike River, (Pike Dam) 

Dave's Falls 


29i 
31 






8 


81 









No. 4. 

DISTANCE TABLE.— MICHIGAMI RIVER. 



From 
To 



Michigammi 

Outlet, Lake Michigimi (Port- 
age, one mile left bank) . . . . 



From 
Republic 



SUMMER WAYPARING. 



271 



MiCHiGAMi River — Continued. 



To 



Republic 

Foot Long Rapids (Portage 2 

miles, right bank) 

Flooclwood Portage (Portage i 

mile, left bank) 

Lake Ellen 

Fence, or Mitcbigan River 

Deer River 

Upper Michigami Falls (Portage 

i mile, right bank) 

Lake Mary, Portage 

Little Norway Portage (Portage 

i mile, left bank) 

Big Falls, or Grand Portage 

(Portage li miles, left bank) 
Mouth Michigami River (Portage 

at Falls i miles, right bank. . 



11 


18 




14i 


32i 


14* 


Si 
8 

4i 
Ai 


41 
49 

58 


28 
31 
35i 
40 


4 

9 


62 
71 


44 

53 


5 


76 


58 


6 


82 


64 


8 


90 


72 



No. 5. 

DISTANCE TABLE.— MICHIGAMI RIVER TO BRULE 
RIVER, VIA LAKE MARY AND PAINT RIVER. 



From 
To 



Michigami River 

Lake Mary 

Deer Fence Portage 

Paint River (Portage) 

Crystal, or Paint Falls 

Mouth Sugar, or Trout River. . 

Sugar River, Portage 

Mud Lake (Portage) 

Sugar River (Portage, H miles 

Lone Grave, or Bass Lake 

Foot Lake Chicagon 

Head Lake Chicagon 

Lake Minnie (Portage) 

Brule River (Portage, | mile). 





TOTAL 


From 
Republic 


i 




53i 


H 


If 


54f 


2 


3f 


56| 


6i 


m 


63i 


8i 


181 


IH 


2i 


2U 


lU 


i 


21f 


I4i 


n 


23i 


76i 


2i 


26 


79. 


3f 


294 


82f 


3i 


33ir 


86i 


i 


3of 


86i 


li- 


35 


88 



272 



TEOUTING ON THE BEULE. 



No. 6. 

DISTANCE TABLE.— MENOMINEE RIVER. 



From 
To 



Mouths Michigrami & Brule Rivers 

Badwater (Indian Village) 

Badwater Crossing (Ferry) 

Upper Twin Falls (Portage, left 

bank) 

Lower Twin Falls (Portage, left 

bank) 

Mouth Pine River 

Head Quiniseck Rapids, 

iLong Portage, If miles, left 
bank. 2 Short Portages, 
I miles, left bank 

Upper, ' or Big Quiniseck Falls 

(Portage, left bank) 

Lower, or Little Quiniseck Falls 

(Portage, left bank) 

Head Sand Portage, 

i Long Portage, 2 miles, left 
•] bank. 2 Short Portages, i 

( mile left bank 

Foot Sand Portage 

New York Farm (Mouth Sturgeon 

River) 

Sturgeon Falls (Portage,left bank) 

Grand Island 

"No Speak" _ • 

Pemeneebunwan Rapids (Portage 

right bank) 

Pemeneebunwun Creek 

Pemenee Falls (Portage, right 

bank) • • 

Pemenee Creek 

N. L. Co.'s Pemenee Farm 

Muscawana ( Indian Village). . • • 

Muscawana Island 

Muscawana Rapids 

Chalk Hill Rapids 

White Rapids 

White Rapids (Indian Village). . 

Sixty Islands 

Mouth Pike River 





TOTAL 


From. 
Republic 


u 




121i 


2 


8i 


123i 


2i 


101 


125f 


i 


m 


126i- 


4i 


151 


1301 


•6i 


22i 


137i- 


14 


24 


139 


41 


28| 


1431 


1* 


32i- 


174J- 


If 


32ir 


147ir 


4i 


3fii 


15U 


1 


37i 


152i 


9 


46i 


16U 


2 


48i 


163i 


f 


4% 


164i 


2f 


52 


167 


2f 


54| 


1691 


+ 


55i- 


170i 


1 


m 


17U 


21 


59 


174 


+ 


59^ 


lT4i 


1* 


m 


176ir 


1* 


63 


178 


4+ 


67i 


I82i 


f 


68ir 


183i 


i 


68f 


1831 


3 


71i 


186f 



SUMMER WAYIARING. 



273 



Menominee Rivek — Continued. 



To 



K. C. Co. 's Pike Farm 

Mouth Shakey River 

Head Wausauka Portage (Portage 

i mile, left bank) 

Foot Wausauka Portage (Portage 

i mile, left bank) 

Pock DuNock 

Head Long Reach 

Relay House 

Head Grand Rapids 

Foot Grand Rapids, (Mouth Little 

Cedar River) 

Twin Islands 

Twin Creek 

Little River 

Upper Dam 

Mouth Menominee River 



u 


TSi 


1 


m 


4i 


ISi 


3* 


S2 


4+ 


8fH 


5i 


9-2i 


4 


96i 


i 


96i 


31 


100+ 


6i 


106i 


6i 


mi 


6t 


120 


H 


r2ii 


3i 


125 



188i 
189i- 

193i 

197 

20U 
207ir 
21 li 
21 If 

215^ 

221 i 

235 

236i 

240 



^'Si.*!^^ "^Sf^ Nl 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



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